Mauthausen

I’m struggling with what to say about visiting a Concentration Camp for my first time. First off, it’s funny to think about asking somebody, was this your first time assuming there would be more visits. In that question I start scrutinizing myself wondering if I had reacted in the correct way. On the way there I was afraid of the emotions I would feel I wondered if I would loose it emotionally—would I weep uncontrollably or become furiously irate? How is one supposed to react in a place of 200,000 murders?

I prepared for this excursion by re-reading my underlined portions of Ruth Kluger’s book Still Alive and Adolf Frankl’s Art Against Oblivion. I have Ruth Kluger running through my brain: “the missing ingredients are the odor of fear emanating from human bodies, the concentrated aggression, the reduced minds.” I also have the images of Adolf Frankl’s life in Auschwitz imprinted in my mind. Through his art, I see the agony, horror and torture the Holocaust inflicted upon this man (and countless others). In his painting The Crematoria, he talks about the stench of burning flesh. I decide I will breathe deep when I walk in and take notice of the smells

We drove over a bridge with railroad tracks on our way to Mauthausen. Were these the same train tracks that Eichmann used to transport the prisoners? Then we drove through the quaint little town of Mauthausen. It seems like a sweet, innocent and classic little Austrian town. As we reached the top of Errinerung Strasse (Memory Street) and arrived at the camp I first looked at the view from the top of the hill. It was a beautiful view of the whole entire town resting peacefully below. I wondered if the prisoners were able to see the freedom below as they lived through their hell on earth. Then I wondered if the town below could see the camp and if they knew the atrocities committed in their town’s quarry. Then I wonder if I would have known if I lived in Mauthausen in 1941. Then I wonder if I would have done anything even if I had known.

Inside the camp I don’t smell any unusual odors. The air is crisp and fresh.

On our tour we make our way to the Memorial Garden. I find myself irritated as I have to stay with the group and listen to the tour guide. She asks us questions about what we think the monuments mean, and have a volunteer from our group read quotes of survivors and details of the Holocaust’s horrors. I want to get away, not because I can’t handle the information, I’ve read more and plenty more gruesome details before. I resent being tied to a group of people as I walk through the grounds of the death camp where thousands were murdered. I turn around and find myself staring at a pile of stones climbing up the giant Menorah, the memorial to the Jewish victims. I’m caught off guard, as tears well up in my eyes and my chin quivers. I grow more upset: because of the rain in Vienna I left my sunglasses at home. Now it’s hot and sunny and I have nothing to cover my eyes and I can’t let these strangers see me cry, I never cry, my boyfriend has only seen me cry a handful of times and we’ve known each other over six years. My God I’m petty. I gain composure and stick with the group (at my own pace).

We enter into a long discussion about Das Experiment, the German film based on the Stanford prison experiment (http://www.prisonexp.org/). The experiment uncovers how easily ordinary citizens opt to commit crimes against humanity when under the direction of someone in charge. This is similar to Hannah Arendt’s argument in The Banality of Evil. The Holocaust death machine was not run by armies of psychopathic SS men, but by ordinary citizens. I find myself surrounded by 30 ordinary citizens: a few Jews, a few Conservatives and a lot of Liberals. I wonder about how we would fit into the dynamics of perpetrator, bystander, and victim. Would any of us have opted for resistance? Next we enter the prisoner camp.

The inside of the barracks smell old and musty.

The last place our tour guide takes us in the gas chamber. We see where the zyklon b gas was fed into the cement chamber. Then less than 30 of us cram into the tomb where 80-100 walking skeletons breathed their last breath, contaminated with a lethal dose of pesticide. I wonder about Ruth Kluger’s father and his elbows. I look at the walls and the door: the last structure 200,000 inmates scratching, clung to hoping to breakthrough for fresh air. Fresh air for them however being coupled with the stench of burning flesh and the ashes of the prisoners that died before them.

I smell my fellow students: hints of flowery shampoo, perfume and cologne.

My thoughts are interrupted by the sobs of some of my classmates. I walk through the door, counting my steps to the gate: 282. As I stare out the gate all I see is the Menorah straight ahead and the Memorial Garden that replaced the SS officers barracks. I don’t know how many more steps it would have taken make it out of the main gate. Two-hundred-and-eighty-two would have only led me face to face to those coerced into the banality of evil. The futility astounds me. There were 200 ‘stairs’ down into the quarry. Those however have been re-modeled to make it safer for the camp visitors. It was nothing like it was for the prisoners. There was no blood. There were no bodies. There were no prisoners. I had snacks in my backpack in case I got hungry and a sweater in case it turned cold.

The air smelled fresh but hot. I can smell the water in the pond at the bottom of Parachute Wall.

At dinner on our way home to Vienna in Waidhoffen we talk about Mauthausen, the Holocaust and the Jews. The discussion turns too depressing for dinner conversation when we get onto the topic of other atrocities occurring today. We arrived at this when discussing the difference of the Holocaust versus Shoah. Is it a cycle of tragedies or one event? Others wanted to happily drink their wine and beer. I could talk about it all day. Bystanders did not talk about. We did not even face the fear of death, or worse, by talking about it. Today at the camp I learned of an SS officer who was pardoned. When asked about his actions he replied “I can’t believe people could do such things.” The interviewer replied, “You did this.” He could not even admit reality. He could not talk about it. I do not have the officer’s name and could not find his story. It is on my list of things to do.

It rained with thunder and lightening on our way home. Our bus did not sing on the way home from the alps, but we sang on the way home from Mauthausen: Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody among other less epic songs.