Danube Bike Tour Day 21: Linz to Mauthausen
Posted by Cassie, November 27th, 2009
Friday, October 16, 2009
Distance: 20km
This morning we went shopping for gloves. Both of us forgot to bring gloves, and it was definitely too cold to bike without gloves. We went to the Woolworth and picked up a cheap pair of gloves. It was really cold while we were riding today, and it was snowing as we left Linz. I was really glad I had gloves.
We planned to stop at the concentration camp at Mauthausen, and as we arrived at the concentration camp, we saw the Alps at last! It was exciting, but it was a strange place to see the Alps for the first time.
Alps!
We didn’t realize how large the concentration camp was. It was the main concentration camp for the area. We ended up spending the rest of the day walking around the concentration. The weather was sufficiently dreary for visiting such a place. The concentration camp was interesting, but it was also depressing to visit a place where such horrific acts against humanity took place. It was especially overwhelming to go into the gas chamber where so many people were killed and look at the crematoriums that were used of disposing of the bodies. Towards the end of the war, the crematoriums were not sufficient for disposing of the bodies, so they had to dig mass grave sites. The concentration camp was foreboding with high stone walls enclosing the camp. They also had barb wire along walls that had 370 volts of electricity running through it. Many people committed suicide by electrocuting themselves on the wire. Many others tried to escape the concentration camp, but if they were caught, they were publicly executed in front of all the other prisoners. The concentration camp was a horrific place to visit, but I hope it will motivate people to prevent such a horror from happening again. We saw a racist political sign in Linz that said, “Tradition or invasion” implying that Eastern Europeans were not welcome in Austria. I was tempted to put a Hitler mustache on the man in the poster, and another person had drawn a Hitler mustache when we walked by the poster again.
Mauthausen concentration camp main gate
Mauthausen concentration camp gas chamber
It was still too cold to camp, so we stayed at another nice, warm pension tonight. The family running the place had a really sweet Lab that we played with for a while.
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