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Mauthausen is located east of Linz, Austria

Initially, a single camp existed at Mauthausen; it expanded over time and by the summer of 1944, Mauthausen had become one of the largest complexes in the German–controlled part of Europe. Apart from the four main sub–camps, Mauthausen and nearby Gusen had more than 50 sub–camps, located throughout Austria and southern Germany. The complex was fueled by slave labor brought from all over occupied Europe. Tunnels were dug and military factories were brought and installed in these tunnels. The assembly plants produced munitions, rockets and armaments In January 1945 there were about 85,000 inmates in the complex. It is

not known how many people died in the complex system of camps during its existence; estimates range between 122,766 and 320,000 people.

Sub–camp inmate counts Late 1944 – Early 1945
Gusen (I, II and III combined)	26,311
Ebensee	18,437
Gunskirchen	15,000
Melk	10,314
Linz	6,690
Amstetten	2,966
Wiener–Neudorf	2,954
Schwechat	2,568
Steyr–Münichholz	1,971
Schlier–Redl–Zipf	1,488
Some of the sub–camps of Mauthausen with the number of inmates.

The two main camps, Mauthausen and Gusen I, were labeled as “Grade III” or strict concentration camps. Mauthausen never lost this rating. Mauthausen specialized in killing inmates by sheer labor exhaustion, especially political inmates from across conquered Europe. The Mauthausen complex of camps began to go underground with the large scale air offensive war across Germany. More and more tunnels were dug where entire factories were buried underground to protect them from Allied bombs. The inmates dug these tunnels, assembled the

Mordechai Lustig was recorded as Markus Lustig on all German documents. He was recorded as an inmate at the Mauthausen concentration camp on August 10, 1944. He had arrived from Plaszow concentration camp (Yad Vashem archives)

We arrived at Mauthausen concentration camp and were immediately organized into groups and each group was led to the showers. We had to strip completely and each body was thoroughly examined. All body orifices were checked for valuables. We were then assigned barracks. Each barrack contained 1,000 people. Each barrack had a block chief. I was assigned to block number seven. The leader of the block was an Austrian communist. Shimon Wiesenthal was in our block. Following the war, Wiesenthal would remain in Austria and devote himself to hunting down Nazi criminals and help bring them to trial. We remained in this barrack seven days and were naked. The barrack was fenced and isolated from the rest of the camp. Once a day we received food. There were evening roll calls and then to bed. We slept like sardines since there was no room to move or turn. We slept as good as we could. Each day we received another piece of clothing. One day a striped shirt, the next day striped pants, shoes, then a box that contained numbers. I had to wrap the number around my left arm and tied it with a piece of wire. My number was 85366. All night I thought about this number. Then I remembered my Yeshiva days and tried to figure out what the numbers represented. In the Hebrew alphabet each letter also has a number. The number 85366 symbolized the word “ Koach ” or power. I was hopeful that the number would bring me some luck. We also received a mess kit to receive our food. I was very lucky that I was not assigned to the quarry with all the steps. There were 186 steps in the quarry from the bottom to the top. The people assigned to the quarry lasted about a week.

The infamous quarry of Mauthausen, also called the “Stairs of Death.”

The Mauthausen concentration camp. On the top left side are the steps and the parachute jump site. Below are the quarries, the S.S. area, the civilian barracks, the Russian camp, the tent camp, the reservoir, the kennels.

Memorial to the victims of the Melk concentration camp erected by the Austrian government

We entered the camp of Melk and were immediately assigned to several blocks. There were also huge hangars. I was assigned to hangar number 16 headed by a Hungarian Jew named Harry who was formerly a musician.

Soup in the tunnel of Melk Sketch by Adrian Piquee–Audrain, a French inmate of the camp The sketch was graciously donated by Michelle Piquee–Audrain

We all had to tie our mess kits and spoons to our bodies in order to retain them. If one lost his mess kit he had no utensil to receive food. I sharpened my spoon so that I could use it as a knife. I was caught and received 25 lashes on my back side. I was not the only one to be caught and punished. I was soon transferred to block number 10 headed by an Austrian political inmate who wore a red inverted triangle on his clothing. I spent a short time there and was sent to block number 13 that was situated above the kitchen. The kitchen head was a Russian. Every 10 days we were taken to the shower room. Ten people were given one shower head. We washed as good as we could but were basically filthy. We worked long hours with all kinds of construction materials and needed more time. But this was not the case, so our hygiene was poor and the slightest scratch or cut of the skin resulted in infections and boils. I myself developed boils and could barely walk. I decided to admit myself to the hospital. This was a very dangerous decision, for the Germans injected many patients with deadly shots that resulted in their death. I had no choice and decided to go to the hospital. I was lucky and came out alive. I was always hungry. Some inmates pulled their gold teeth to sell the gold for bread or soup. The food rations were not so bad but insufficient for hard working people. We received in the morning 250 grams of bread, a slice of margarine and coffee. For lunch we received an unpeeled potato and a meat patty or soup. Every Thursday, the Red Cross distributed 250 grams of bread. On occasion I had diarrhea and abstained from eating all together.

On Sunday we did not work. We tended to the laundry and other chores. I went to the barber and shaved all the hair of my body except for a strip of hair along the head that identified us as inmates of the camp. This was the standing order of the camp. The head of block number 13 was a Jew from the vicinity of Sandz who helped Jews. In the winter of 1945, someone stole the shoes of an inmate in block 13 while he was sleeping. This puzzled everybody since all doors were locked at night and nobody could enter or leave the block. Yet, the shoes were gone. The inmate was punished for not guarding his shoes but it was winter time and he needed shoes to survive. The block chief managed to procure for him a pair of shoes. I slept with my shoes under my head as did all the other inmates. So how did the shoes disappear? The block was above the kitchen that worked at night. Someone managed to climb up from the kitchen floor to the floor of our block, removed the shoes and dropped them to the kitchen floor and then lowered himself through the slight opening to the

Crematoria of the Mauthausen concentration camp

Our block consisted of inmates from different countries, such as Russians, Poles, Czechs, Yugoslavs, Greeks, Spaniards, Germans, Austrians, Hungarians, Frenchmen and others. We celebrated January 1, 1945 with a concert. We did not work that day and received a good meal. We sang songs and the day was pleasant. I was moved again to block number nine that was located on the road leading from the hospital to the crematoria. The porters who transported the dead bodies had extra portions of bread and I sold them my cigarettes for bread. A Jew worked at the crematoria who would survive the war and move to Ramat Gan in Israel. The Melk concentration camp was surrounded with electric fences. Some desperate and hopeless inmates decided to end their sufferings by sneaking up to the electric wires and ended their miseries. Each day the working groups brought back some dead bodies of inmates who were killed due to work incidents or beatings by kapos or were exhausted from work. There were also inmates who died of starvation for they had sold their bread rations for cigarettes.

After January 1945, Melk received many Polish inmates who had participated in the Warsaw revolt of August 1944 against the Germans. The Poles wanted to liberate the Polish capital but failed since the German forces were still strong enough to crush the revolt while the advancing Russian armies stood by and watched. Thousands of Poles were arrested and sent to the concentration camps. Melk also received transports from Auschwitz. Among them was my friend Moshe Hayes who looked well. He told me that he worked at the Canada camp in Auschwitz. This camp

Production line in a tunnel near Melk The picture was taken after World War Two

In April 1945, we were told to assemble at the roll call place. Each group left the camp and headed down to the Danube River where we boarded a ferry that took us to the city of Linz where we disembarked and began our death march in a southwesterly direction. Many of the inmates were weak and sick and fell by the side of the road. The guards immediately shot them. As we marched, I constantly heard shots. The Germans hoped to kill us all by marching us to death. The first night we rested at a farm in Wels where we received coffee. Then we marched to the city of Gmunden where we slept in a brewery. Some inmates decided to make a break but the guards fired at them. We marched and marched. My feet walked automatically. The energy that I accumulated at the Schindler camp came in handy. I was determined to stay alive. As we marched, I saw a poster announcing that President Roosevelt had died. I kept walking and constantly heard rifle shots of inmates being killed. Whoever despaired and gave in was lost. You had to have hope and the will to persist. I survived. On Tuesday we entered the concentration camp of Ebensee under the banner of “Work Liberates.”

The Ebensee concentration camp was established by the S.S. to build tunnels for armaments storage near the town of Ebensee, Austria, in 1943. It was part of the Mauthausen network complex. Due to the inhumane working and living conditions, Ebensee was one of the worst Nazi concentration camps for the death rates of its prisoners. The S.S used several code names – Kalk (English: limestone), Kalksteinbergwerk (English: limestone mine), Solvay and Zement (English: cement) – to conceal the true nature of the camp. The construction of the Ebensee sub–camp began late in 1943, and the first 1,000 prisoners arrived on November 18, 1943 from the main camp of Mauthausen and its sub–camps. The main purpose of Ebensee was to provide slave labor for the construction of enormous underground tunnels in which armament works were to be housed. These tunnels were planned for the evacuated Peenemünde V–2 rocket development program that was bombed by the British bombers. Approximately 20,000 inmates were worked to death constructing giant tunnels in the surrounding mountains. Together with the Mauthausen subcamp of Gusen, Ebensee is considered one of the most horrific Nazi concentration camps. Jews formed about one–third of the inmates, the percentage increasing to 40% by the end of the war, and were the worst treated, though all inmates suffered great hardships.

As the Second World War in Europe came to an end, mass evacuations from other camps put tremendous pressure on the Mauthausen complex, the last remaining concentration camp in the area still controlled by the Nazis. The 25 Ebensee barracks had been designed to hold 100 prisoners each, but they eventually held as many as 750 each. To this number must be added the prisoners being kept in the tunnels or outdoors under the open sky. The crematorium was unable to keep pace with the deaths and naked bodies were stacked outside the barrack blocks and the crematorium itself. In the closing weeks of the war, the death rate exceeded 350 a day. To reduce congestion, a ditch was dug outside the camp and bodies were flung into quicklime. On a single day in April 1945, a record 80 bodies were removed from Block 23 alone; in this pile, feet were seen to be twitching. During this period, the inmate strength reached a high of about 20,000.

The concentration camp of Ebensee was located within a wooded area and the barracks were scattered between the trees. The first impression was one of a pleasant place. One could have mistaken the place for a health resort. The camp had a large assembly area and a crematorium that was located outside the camp entrance. The crematorium was surrounded with electric fences. This small compound also contained the S.S. living quarters, their kitchen and their offices. On entering the camp I was assigned to a barrack where I shared a bed with four inmates. The three–level bunk beds extended all along the barrack. The camp was located high in the Alp mountains. The camp was above the city of Ebensee that was located in the valley. The camp was at a distance of a kilometer and a half from the city. The Ebensee area had many tunnels and some of them extended to seven kilometers in length. They produced tanks and other military machines. The English and American bombers began to bomb the area, especially the hamlets of Puchacha and Pucheim where there was a concentration of railroad cars that arrived from many places loaded with supplies. Following an Allied bombing raid, some of the inmates were taken to clear the area of the debris. They brought back in their coats, since it was still cold, some sugar, rice and other staples. They shared the goods with us. The food situation was very bad at Ebensee. In the morning, we received a slice of bread that weighed 120 grams and black coffee. For supper we received soup that consisted of potato peels. The soup distributor dished out the soup water and kept the thicker content for himself and friends. We were constantly hungry.

To reach the place of work, we descended many steps and then climbed steps. We loaded stones into small rail cars that were then pushed out of the tunnel and dumped in designated places. We found pieces of black charcoal that we chewed. The taste was similar to that of margarine. We also chewed pieces of tar as though it was chewing gum. We suffered from hunger and the bitter cold. The Germans killed many inmates daily. The crematoria could not handle all the dead bodies and some were left for the following days. At night, some Russian inmates and perhaps other inmates sliced pieces of meat from the corpses and roasted the pieces on fires and ate it. The Jewish inmates abstained from the practice.

In May 1945, we began to hear artillery shots fired in the distance. The shots were nearing. Our block decided to leave the barrack and to fall down on the steps going down. We were all over the place and claimed exhaustion. We were ordered back to the barrack where we remained for the day. The other barracks saw what we did and they followed. Before long, the entire camp refused to work. Three days we did not go to work. Then the Germans called all the inmates to a general assembly at the assembly square. They told us that they had to protect us from the American, English and Russian bombers and therefore we had to proceed to the tunnels for our safety. The assembled inmates responded in unison with a resounding “NO!” We shall not go. All the inmates had heard the rumors that circulated in the camp that the S.S. intended to blow up the tunnels with the workers and thus erase the traces of the inmates. An S.S. man relayed this information to an inmate who divulged the information throughout the camp. The Germans ordered all inmates to return to their barracks. The S.S. decided to abandon the camp. They brought some old military reservists from the nearby city and placed them in the watch towers. The gates were locked. The S.S. vanished in the darkness. During the night, groups of inmates began to settle scores with the kapos and functionaries who had made their life miserable. Some were killed and others were seriously injured. These activities went on throughout the night. Chaos ensued in the camp. The next day, May 6, 1945, at about 10 o'clock in the morning, an American tank crashed its way into the camp. We were free at last. What a beautiful and sunny day it turned out to be. A day that I remember to this moment.

Entrance gate at the Ebensee concentration camp On May 6, 1945, a banner was hung at the entrance gate by the French resistance fighters who survived the war. The banner read “ Les Francais salutent les Allies” or the French greet the Allies. The camp was liberated by soldiers in the 80th Division of the US Third Army

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