Excursions - Mauthausen Concentration Camp

We started at 7:00 am and before 9:00 am we got off at the parking lot of KT Mauthausen. Before the opening of the memorial, the history teacher mentioned some basic information about the place.

The camp was established in 1938 as a branch of the Dachau concentration camp. The decisive factor for the choice of the location was the presence of granite in the local quarry. The prisoners were first employed in the construction of the camp and in the production of building materials for various companies.

Until 1943, the political function of the camp, the long-term prosecution and imprisonment of - real or perceived - political and ideological opponents, was at the forefront. Mauthausen and Gusen were temporarily the only camps classified as "level III". This meant the harshest prison conditions within the National Socialist concentration camp system. The death rate during this period was one of the highest among concentration camps in the German Reich.

On 24 October 1942, 254 collaborators and close relatives of the paratroopers and assassins of R. Heydrich were executed in the Mauthausen concentration camp. 

In the CT we moved to the appealplac where further and more precise explanations were given and questions were answered. The groups were given a map of the site with information in Czech and then the students were dismissed to explore according to their own priorities and interests.

We visited the individual barracks for prisoners and SS, the museum, the crematorium, the gas chamber, the quarantine, the showers, the room of names...

Eventually we descended the "stairs of death" to the quarry, which didn't tire us out so much, but the way back down 186 steps and further uphill was not so easy for some.