August 23
* Today was a very strange, sad, and morbid day with our visit to the Mauthausen concentration camp. It was one of the only level three camps, which meant that once you arrived you were never meant to leave, or as the Nazis described, the only way out was through the chimney. The various memorials that had been resurrected there were all rather morbid, but then how could they not be when dealing with such a horrible atrocity to mankind? During our tour I learned a few new things like the different reasons why the prisoners’ hair was shaved off. 1) for cleanliness and disease control, 2) so that people’s individuality would be gone, everyone would look the same, and 3) so that the nearby community could spot out prisoners that had escaped. Probably the most bone-chilling moment I had there was when I stepped inside the prison hall because it looked just as if it were in use, unlike the empty barracks. Another strange moment was when I went down to the quarry where all the labor was done. It was strange because now it is a beautiful scenery, but I felt so wrong thinking that when just 60 years ago people were being murdered here. Also, walking up the ‘Stairs of Death’ I was getting really winded, which made me stop and put things into perspective. Here I am, a healthy 19 year old girl having trouble getting up the hundreds of stairs while people suffering from malnutrition and abuse had to run up these stairs, with heavy loads, while people pointed guns at them.
posted by lauREN @ 9/11/2006
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