Danke, Danke, Danke Schön!: May 23rd - 24th: A Walk Through a Concentration Camp, A Walk Through a Park

Back to blogging!

Wednesday the 23^rd was a pretty dark and disturbing day. First thing in the morning we took a train to Mauthausen, home of an infamous concentration camp. It was a very interesting and moving experience to approach the camp, because it is set in an absolutely beautiful stretch of countryside. Taking a tour of the grounds was even more moving. We started with a movie that served as a sort of primer for the tour; needless to say, it was disturbing. The tour was too, even more so in fact, and to top it off, rain started coming down the second we stepped out the door. Our tour guide shared some facts that I had never been exposed to before. For one thing, there were WAY more concentration and death camps throughout Europe than I had even imagined. Also, soccer games were apparently regularly held outside many of the camps, including Mauthausen, and many of the games were between the S.S. and the prisoners (the able athletes)! After the introductory information we viewed different parts of the camp, including memorials, the quarry, the showers, the barracks, the killing chambers and crematoriums… it was just one horrible thing after another. The quarry was the worst part; Mauthausen is infamous for its “Stairs of Death,” a gigantic flight of steps that prisoners were forced to climb while carrying rocks from the quarry. The rocks weighed as much, if not more, than the prisoners themselves, and when a prisoner tripped, a domino effect ensued. You can imagine the horrors that followed. I was glad when we finally left Mauthausen, but I am also glad I had the experience of seeing it, and I think every able person should pay it a visit. Our visit was pretty much an all-day ordeal. When we got back to Vienna, we had a group dinner at café latte, where I satisfied my need for comfort food by getting the chocolate mousse. It was a delicious work of art, just what I needed to help me feel better after a trip to a place like Mauthausen…

PHOTO UPDATE:

Outside Mauthausen concentration camp

At the bottom of a document in the museum.

Awaiting our tour.

The guards' former swimming pool. Local kids skate there (see the tracks?).

This is where the soccer field used to be. Right next to the sick camp...

The Stairs of Death (all 186 of them).

The surroundings were surprisingly beautiful. Felt strange...

One of very many memorials.

The main gate. Scary place.

Just inside the camp.

The "Wailing Wall," where newcomers were made to stand for hours or even days, often enduring severe abuse.

Showers.

Inside a barracks.

Smokestack above the crematorium.

Gas chamber.

Crematorium.

Dessert doesn't taste quite as sweet as it should after a tour of Mauthausen.

Thursday the 24^th began with a discussion of Holocaust poetry by a wide range of authors (I will try to find some links to the poems soon!). Most of us had done the readings in advance, but I felt like the poems had much more impact after seeing the camp at Mauthausen. There is certainly no way we will ever understand entirely, but seeing the camp in person seemed to solidify my knowledge of the Holocaust in a way that I can’t explain. It was a very enlightening experience. After the discussion, we headed to a train station to get tickets for Innsbruck and Salzburg, our “vacation” destinations for the coming weekend. It was somewhat of a fiasco; we had waited till the last minute and it took more than two hours to find a hostels/hotels that were cheap and vacant. After we got our reservations and train tickets settled, we split into groups to begin work on our mapping projects. In these projects, we scope out a specific neighborhood in Vienna and essentially just get to know it on a deeper level. My group had Stadtpark, famous for being the first public park in Vienna. It was surprisingly difficult to figure out, but we did notice some interesting features. For one thing, dogs aren’t allowed in, like, 95% of the park, and there are hardly any play areas for children! Probably the most interesting part was the canal that divides the park; it is virtually empty and covered in graffiti that leads right up to the entrance of the park. Some of it was pretty interesting, but most of it was just simple tagging, and it was often placed on the most beautiful architecture of the park, which was really unfortunate. That being said, mapping the neighborhood went well on the first day and our plan is to learn more about the park’s visitors on our next round of mapping. We concluded with a pizza dinner that was really cool. I got a pizza that had egg cracked in the middle, and my friend got one with corn on it! So weird, but so delicious! It was a great way to end the day.

Sorry I’m still so behind! I’m catching up slowly but surely! More blogging is on the way!

UPDATE: The Holocaust poetry we studied included "First They Came for the Jews" by Pastor Niemöller, "Fugue of Death" by Paul Celan, "Night Over Birkenau" by Tadeusz Borowski, and "Shemá" by Primo Levi. Photo update below!