Mauthausen Memorial

Why go

The memorial says that from 1938 to 1945 the Mauthausen concentration camp was at the centre of a system of over 40 subcamps and the main site of political, social and racist persecution by the National Socialist regime on Austrian territory; of around 190,000 people imprisoned there, at least 90,000 were murdered, and the US Army reached Gusen and Mauthausen on 5 May 1945. It describes itself as a former crime scene, a place of memory, a cemetery for the remains of thousands of those murdered there and a site of political and historical education. The Soviet occupying authorities handed the former camp to the Republic of Austria on 20 June 1947, the memorial opened in spring 1949, the former infirmary building has been a museum since 1970, and two permanent exhibitions and a Room of Names opened in 2013. The memorial's pages say access to the memorial site is possible without registration, that visitor regulations apply to all areas, that it does not advise visits with children under 14 and that dogs and other animals are not permitted. This record is the memorial, not the historical camp, and it lies in Mauthausen, not in Linz.