Quick Facts
At Mauthausen, prisoners were worked for over half a day, each day. This camp existed for 7 years, from 1938, to 1945. It was liberated by U.S. soldiers. Over 1.1 million jews, gypsies, political prisoners, czechs, poles, and criminals were killed at Mauthausen.
A U.S. soldier talks to surviving prisoners at Mauthausen in Austria in May 1945. "The thing that, I think, impressed all of us immediately was the horrible physical condition of most of the inmates. ...most of them in very, very bad shape. Some of them actually looked almost like living skeletons. ...I would estimate their average weight might have been probably eighty-five, ninety pounds..." says Colenal Edmund M. after seeing the prisoners. Photo Credit: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_ph.php?ModuleId=10007051&MediaId=864 (Katie)
Americans looking at the Mauthausen quarry after they liberated the camp.The actual concentration camp was located along the Danube river. On the edge of the camp there was a quarry for granite. The prisoners were forced to work there. The reason they had to work there was because Hitler wanted granite to have buildings in Linz. ( Linz was a city that was only a few miles away. "Because of the war, none of the grandiose buildings that Hitler had planned for Linz and Berlin were ever built.~ unknown author. Credit: http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Mauthausen/KZMauthausen/WienerGraben/index.html
(Kennedy)