Commemoration of the victims of the Gusen concentration camp in Langenstein

National Council President Wolfgang Sobotka (ÖVP) is also expected to attend the celebration of the Gusen Memorial Service Committee at the Mauthausen Memorial. Between 1938 and 1945, almost 200,000 people from more than 40 nations were held captive in the Mauthausen concentration camp and its more than 40 subcamps, and around 90,000 did not survive. Conditions were particularly harsh in the Gusen subcamp, where 71,000 prisoners from almost 30 nations were interned, of whom around 36,000 died. The prisoners had to build a tunnel complex for the armaments industry under the code name “Bergkristall”.

More on this: Several celebrations commemorate the liberation of the Mauthausen and Gusen concentration camps

While the core of the main camp in Mauthausen became a memorial, the area in Gusen was increasingly forgotten. After the liberation, the camp was dismantled and houses were built. Austria was repeatedly confronted with criticism from at home and abroad that the commemoration of this horror site was being neglected. A few years ago, the Republic finally acquired some land on the site of the former Gusen concentration camp, and now a worthy memorial site is to be built there.

The art installation #eachnamematters, which has been shown at various locations for several years, is also dedicated to the memory of the concentration camp victims. It makes the names of those killed visible in public space: The visualization, which was developed as a cooperation between the Mauthausen Concentration Camp Memorial and Ars Electronica, casts the names after dark on the bridgehead buildings on Linz’s main square, which house the art university. In previous years the installation could be seen in Mauthausen and Langenstein (Gusen).

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The traditional liberation celebration of the Mauthausen concentration camp under the leadership of the Mauthausen Committee, to which numerous international delegations come every year, follows on Sunday. The highlight of the celebrations is the “Festival of Joy” on the anniversary of the surrender of the German Wehrmacht on May 8th. Both events this year are dedicated to the topic of “Law and Justice in National Socialism,” and Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen is expected to attend both.