Mauthausen, literally the Death House
Part of this amazing trip has been the unexpected, the unplanned, but the destinations that we have been meant to go to. Mauthausen was one.
This is one of the many concentration camps that existed during World War 2. Lots of people, I knoe, have been to Auschwitz, because dare I say it, it is on the tourist run. We have not done the tourist run. I'm it sure why people go to these places, each has their own reasons. Whether to feel something, to be a bit of a site see-er or because they have a connection.
For me, it was the connection, for Mike too. My Dads big brother spent a long time there. Thankfully he survived, flourished, and we will spend time with him this trip.
I expected the place to feel sad, to almost feel the pain of those who suffered and died there. The atrocities committed there are beyond belief. The suffering, the indignity, the dehumanisation, the sheer brutality. When someone says they are going through hell. I would eish them to go, to see and to understand what this place was. This was the closest thing to hell on earth that hopefully we will ever see. Hopefully we are getting better as a race.
What I found was strength. The walls rise up in stone from the top of an already commanding hill. They are solid, strong, and the sun was shining on them. They were beautiful. The displays are done in a mixture of modern interpretive design that tells the story within the walls of the infirmary. The gas chambers and crematoria are chilling in their originality. The barracks have been left empty, stripped of everything so you can just stand and take it in.
The room of names is haunting. Cold, silent, and every single name of some 90,000 people who died there is inscribed on flat displays. It really hits home.
In the garden is a flock of statues, each one a memorial erected by different countries that lost citizens within the walls of Mauthausen. Italy, Portugal, Russia, Denmark, slovakia, and many others.
My overall feeling in leaving the place is that the massive stone walls are not symbolic of depression, or lack of freedom, they are not sad. They stand as strong and proud as the spirits of those who died within them, and those who like my amazing uncle walked away from them.
Those walls are the backbone of the descendants of the survivors of the holocaust. The strength behind each of us who was born with an ambition, and a drive to make up for those generations we lost.
We cannot sit and do nothing, people died, people survived. Our people. We have so much to be thankful for, and to push forward with.
They are with us.
This is one of the many concentration camps that existed during World War 2. Lots of people, I knoe, have been to Auschwitz, because dare I say it, it is on the tourist run. We have not done the tourist run. I'm it sure why people go to these places, each has their own reasons. Whether to feel something, to be a bit of a site see-er or because they have a connection.
For me, it was the connection, for Mike too. My Dads big brother spent a long time there. Thankfully he survived, flourished, and we will spend time with him this trip.
I expected the place to feel sad, to almost feel the pain of those who suffered and died there. The atrocities committed there are beyond belief. The suffering, the indignity, the dehumanisation, the sheer brutality. When someone says they are going through hell. I would eish them to go, to see and to understand what this place was. This was the closest thing to hell on earth that hopefully we will ever see. Hopefully we are getting better as a race.
What I found was strength. The walls rise up in stone from the top of an already commanding hill. They are solid, strong, and the sun was shining on them. They were beautiful. The displays are done in a mixture of modern interpretive design that tells the story within the walls of the infirmary. The gas chambers and crematoria are chilling in their originality. The barracks have been left empty, stripped of everything so you can just stand and take it in.
The room of names is haunting. Cold, silent, and every single name of some 90,000 people who died there is inscribed on flat displays. It really hits home.
In the garden is a flock of statues, each one a memorial erected by different countries that lost citizens within the walls of Mauthausen. Italy, Portugal, Russia, Denmark, slovakia, and many others.
My overall feeling in leaving the place is that the massive stone walls are not symbolic of depression, or lack of freedom, they are not sad. They stand as strong and proud as the spirits of those who died within them, and those who like my amazing uncle walked away from them.
Those walls are the backbone of the descendants of the survivors of the holocaust. The strength behind each of us who was born with an ambition, and a drive to make up for those generations we lost.
We cannot sit and do nothing, people died, people survived. Our people. We have so much to be thankful for, and to push forward with.
They are with us.
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