Visiting the Mauthausen Memorial: what the memorial asks of visitors

The short answer

The Mauthausen Memorial stands on the site of the former Mauthausen concentration camp, at Erinnerungsstraße 1 in the municipality of Mauthausen, Upper Austria. It describes itself as "a former crime scene, a place of memory, a cemetery for the mortal remains of thousands of those murdered here and, increasingly, a site of political and historical education".[1] According to the memorial's opening-times page, access is free of charge and possible without registration.[5]

The memorial describes its whole site as a cemetery. Its visitor regulations ask visitors to behave and dress in a manner befitting the dignity of a concentration camp memorial site, and they recommend visits for people aged 14 and over.[7] On its opening-times page the memorial puts the same point more directly: it does not advise visiting with children under 14.[5]

What the memorial says the camp was

The memorial's history pages give the facts in its own words. After the "Anschluss" of 12 March 1938, the National Socialist Gauleiter of Upper Austria, August Eigruber, announced that his region would build a concentration camp, and Mauthausen on the Danube was chosen; on 8 August 1938 the SS brought the first prisoners from Dachau, who were forced to build the camp and work in the granite quarries. The Gusen branch camp went into operation in May 1940, and from 1941 the SS built a gas chamber and other installations at Mauthausen for systematic mass murder.[2] Prisoners were later forced to work in the arms industry and, from the end of 1943, to build underground factories at places including Melk, Ebensee and St. Georgen an der Gusen. The US Army reached Gusen and Mauthausen on 5 May 1945.[2]

From 1938 to 1945, the memorial says, Mauthausen was at the centre of a system of more than 40 subcamps and the main site of political, social and racist persecution by the National Socialist regime on Austrian territory. Of a total of around 190,000 people imprisoned there, its visit page says, at least 90,000 were murdered; the camp-history page gives the same totals for the Mauthausen concentration camp and its subcamps over seven years. Its pages phrase this number in three ways: "were murdered" on the visit page, "died" on the camp-history page, "were eventually killed" on the organisation page.[3][2][1] XTOUR quotes the memorial and adds no figure of its own.

How the memorial came to be

The memorial's history page says the Soviet occupying authorities handed the former camp to the Republic of Austria on 20 June 1947, on condition that it be turned into a fitting memorial site, and that by the time it opened in spring 1949, as the "Öffentliches Denkmal Mauthausen", large parts of the camp no longer existed. On the former roll-call area the Republic placed a sarcophagus inscribed "May the living learn from the fate of the dead"; national memorials followed from autumn 1949, and the memorial counts over 14,000 victims buried in the cemeteries at Mauthausen. The former infirmary building has been a museum since 1970, the Visitor Centre opened in 2003, and two permanent exhibitions and a Room of Names commemorating the dead opened in 2013.[4]

Today the memorial is a federal institution under public law, financed by the Ministry of the Interior, according to its organisation page.[3]

On the site: exhibitions and the Room of Names

The memorial's accessibility page describes where the exhibitions are: in the former infirmary building, the permanent exhibition "The Mauthausen Concentration Camp 1938–1945" is on the ground floor, and the basement holds the permanent exhibition "The Crime Scenes of Mauthausen", the crematorium area, the Room of Names and the area that once contained the gas chamber. The same page says there is no charge for visiting the memorial and its exhibitions.[9]

A special exhibition, "Things Tell Stories. Archaeology of the Mauthausen-Gusen Concentration Camp System", runs from 23 April 2026 to 30 June 2027 in the former infirmary building.[10]

Visiting on your own or with a guide

On your own. According to the memorial's educational-services page, visitors can use its Virtual Guide on a smartphone, which works online and offline, or an audio guide.[8] The opening-times page says audio guides, brochures and educational programmes are available at the information portal and bookshop next to the Visitor Centre.[5]

Guided. The memorial's education team runs the guided tours. The educational-services page describes the public tour for individual visitors as two hours long with a minimum age of 14, and lists group formats that must be booked by the 9th of the previous month, adding that tours in the February to June school term are often fully booked earlier. It offers tailored tours free of charge to relatives of victims of the Mauthausen camp system on request.[8]

The pages disagree on public tours. The opening-times page says that "during the summer months of 2027, public tours will again be offered", which reads as though none run now.[5] The educational-services page lists public tours from September to June on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays in German.[8] XTOUR cannot reconcile the two; the memorial's education team is the contact named on both pages.

The visitor regulations

The memorial's regulations page says the camp "was a site of suffering and death of thousands of people", that the regulations exist to preserve the dignity of the site and public safety, and that they apply to all areas.[6] The current regulations, dated 5 May 2025, include the following:[7]

• Behave and dress in a manner befitting the dignity of a concentration camp memorial site; visitors who express hateful or racist views through behaviour, clothing or political symbols will be asked to leave.[7]
• The memorial site is a cemetery: candles may be lit only at monuments and gravestones, and fire is not permitted elsewhere.[7]
• Keep noise to a minimum; megaphones and voice amplifiers are not permitted; guides may not speak to their groups anywhere in the crematorium area.[7]
• Eat and smoke only in the designated areas.[7]
• Commercial filming, distributing printed material, carrying banners, and holding events or independent commemoration ceremonies need the management's permission.[7]

The regulations also say the site is a protected historic monument whose terrain and buildings do not meet current safety standards, that visitors enter at their own risk, and that they should keep to the paved paths. The memorial's staff are authorised to enforce the rules and may ask anyone who does not follow them to leave.[7]

The regulations page links both the 2025 regulations and an older version from 2018.[6] This guide follows the 2025 text.

Children and animals: what the pages say

On children, the memorial's statements agree in substance but differ in wording. The opening-times and regulations pages say "We do not advise visiting the Mauthausen Memorial with children under the age of 14"; the 2025 regulations say visits "are recommended for people aged 14 and over" and that adults accompanying children are responsible for supervising them.[7][6][5] The public tour has a minimum age of 14.[8] XTOUR repeats the memorial's statements and adds no advice of its own.

On animals, the opening-times page says visiting with dogs or other animals is not permitted, and names no exception.[5] The 2025 regulations say that the whole site is considered a cemetery and dogs are therefore not permitted, except guide and assistance dogs with identification, and the accessibility page says such dogs are permitted throughout the site.[9][7]

The "Stairs of Death"

The memorial's camp-history page carries an SS photograph, dated between 1942 and 1944, of prisoners transporting stones on the quarry's "stairs of death".[2] The stairs are preserved as a protected historical monument. The 2025 regulations describe them as narrow, steep and uneven, without handrails, and set conditions for using them: only during opening hours, never in winter or in snow, ice, strong wind, thick fog or heavy rain, with non-slip footwear, from the age of 14 or accompanied by someone 14 or over, and with no more than 300 people at a time.[7] The opening-times page said on 9 October 2026 that the stairs are accessible from 1 April to 26 October in good weather.[5] The accessibility page says visitors with reduced mobility can view the stairs from the access road through the Wiener Graben.[9]

Where it is, and what XTOUR does not state

The memorial is in Mauthausen, not in Linz or Vienna, and XTOUR does not describe it as part of either city. XTOUR publishes no opening times, no directions and no travel times to the memorial, since it has no routing data; the memorial's own pages carry its opening periods and directions. It has not verified accessibility beyond the memorial's own statements, and it does not sell or arrange tours. For the country, see Austria.