Day 9: May 22nd, The Concentration Camp at Mauthausen

There is something quite impossible to wrap your head around when it comes to the Holocaust. It seems almost impossible that we as human beings would do such terrible things to others, yet when you visit places like Mauthausen you are faced with the truth that was the concentration camps. When we drove up to the camp it caught me a little off guard. We were driving along beautiful hills and nice houses when suddenly there it was an immense beast on a peaceful hill. I instantly felt something ominous come over me that didn't really leave me until we were quite a bit aways from the camp. The feeling only increases as we started to wonder the cam individually. Listening to recordings I was given insight into what really was happening in these concentration camps. One of the first things I noticed was how close many roads and houses were to the camp. You could tell that back during the war people could clearly see what was going wrong, but did nothing to help the people inside. The recordings even told of a time when some prisoners managed to escape but were shot down by the SS and the local population. Many were unpunished for their contribution to the camp's crimes. Another thing the recordings pointed out to me was the fact that many of the memorials sent by other countries were figures of strong masculine men, which didn't fit the actual image of the prisoners often. The hours only continued once I stepped into the camp. Display after display recording after recording recounted the tragic conditions and deaths of the people who were forced to come to this horrible place. The whole time I felt chills and tears creep up behind me eyes for all the madness that had happened right where I was standing many years ago. The worst parts for me were the rooms in the basements. Above ground the nice views could slightly distract me from what I was learning, but below ground there was no escape from the truth. The awful enclosed feeling you had while down in the basements was unbearable, and learning about the horrific things that happened out of the eye of the world was truly haunting. Perhaps the most haunting rooms for me were the Room of Names and the Crematorium/Gas Rooms/Execution Rooms. The Room of Names was intense seeing every single name of known people killed at the camp glowing the dimly lit room where peoples' dead bodies were once stored. Seeing the rooms that actually killed these people was just as bad. The emptiness of the rooms haunted me. I honestly couldn't stay long. The whole experience really put the idea of the Holocaust into reality for me. You can always try and imagine how tragic these places must have been, but seeing it in person changes it for you. The creepiest part for me was the fact that I couldn't help but admire how beautiful the scenery was around the camp. After all how can such an awful place hold such beauty? I guess those are one of the things me must learn to accept about the world. Tragic things happen we should honor them and try and respect them, but in great scheme of time nothing ever stays. Despite the negative feelings around this experience I am glad I was able to go. It was a learning moment in many ways. While I did some pictures there I will not post any with this blog out of respect for those who lost their lives there.