26: Mauthausen
“The museum culture of the camp sites has been formed by the vagaries and neuroses of our unsorted, collective memory. It is based on a profound superstition, that is, on the belief that the ghosts can be met and kept in their place, where the living ceased to breathe.”
Ruth Kluger, “Still Alive."
No pictures are needed for this entry, as pictures are meant for pleasant memories, ones that you wish to recall decades down the line. It's not that I don't want to recall Mauthausen concentration camp - in fact, quite the opposite. I want to sear its image into my brain. I want to remember the sun beating down on my face on the pathway to the enclosure, the stench of sweat that still permeated the wood in the barracks, the stones on the ground beneath my feet.
Approaching the camp I noted the remarkable similarities to the Vacaville Prison - the surrounding hills, the town at its base, the road that travels to and from the main gate. The only way in or out. The houses on the hills that overlook the barbed wire and stone walls. Who on earth would choose to live there? I cannot answer this question.
In the same way that one can't help but notice a giant industrial fortification in the distance when driving through Vacaville, one cannot help but notice Mauthausen when traveling through the town. From the right vantage point, its all visible: the guard towers, the lights, the barbed wire.
A common defense of complicit bystanders, those who lived near camps: "We didn't know what was going on. We didn't realize what was happening. We didn't know people were dying." Yet, it's impossible not to notice the armed guards surrounding the gates, the truckloads of supplies being wheeled in and out, the sounds and smells of a prison yard that waft to the town below. It's impossible.
A concentration camp does not spring up overnight. It is not zapped from another dimension, appearing suddenly, gobbling up bodies and lives. Walls are built, supplies are bought, infrastructure is built. The prison is staffed, the prisoners are shuffled in from surrounding areas. Having previously worked on research that later received a Lofland Award, I am very familiar with the interconnected structure that allows for atrocity and genocide to take place. (My research was on Dehomag/IBM and its role in the German census and subsequent role in concentration camps.) Companies produce products, they itemize and maintain the mechanical elements, they develop solutions for creating efficiency within a network of paying customers. In modern times, we call this "Logistics." To put it bluntly: if a bigger, more efficient crematorium needed to be built, the company responsible for manufacturing it would be invested in fulfilling that request. There is no plausible denial from those who stand to profit off human suffering.
Our tour guide, Daniel, began our tour by showing us the site of a soccer field that once existed right outside the camp gates. Mere meters from the gate, where humans were kept in inhumane conditions, were exterminated, were starved - SS guards happily played soccer on weekends. They were a championship team, and townspeople would come spectate, cheering them on. Didn't they smell the prison yard stench? The chatter from men who were confined to tiny spaces, or who worked under the blazing sun all afternoon? The sick and dying, who were placed in barracks behind the soccer field, their bodies piled in the dirt? Daniel told us of a man, who attended one of these soccer games. The man was young at the time of the game, and vaguely reminisced that he had seen bodies piled in the distance. It made little impact on a child who was excited to see a soccer game. Besides, he had grown up under the National Socialist regime. His parents may have been Nazis, his friends may have too. The prisoners were bad men, says the media. The state calls them criminals. They did illegal things, and their lives were not worth that of a true Austrian or German citizen. When one grows up surrounded by a convenient narrative, what would be gained by contesting it?
Dehumanization occurs daily. Like many aspects of society, it's a spectrum, it's not black or white, on or off. Maybe it's a word or phrase used against a certain minority. Maybe it's the person just "doing their job." Maybe it's a person who really believes they are doing the right thing, in order to save their country or race. But as Kluger states, the museum culture of camp sites has been formed by vagaries and neuroses. It's confusing: how do we acknowledge the dehumanization that takes place? We take pictures in front of the monuments and the landmarks. We walk through the places where millions of people were executed. We pay money to eat at the cafe established on the camp grounds. But Mauthausen is the land of ghosts, a world stuck in time. Everything in the camp is in place to establish a curated, specific memory.
Ruth Kluger, “Still Alive."
No pictures are needed for this entry, as pictures are meant for pleasant memories, ones that you wish to recall decades down the line. It's not that I don't want to recall Mauthausen concentration camp - in fact, quite the opposite. I want to sear its image into my brain. I want to remember the sun beating down on my face on the pathway to the enclosure, the stench of sweat that still permeated the wood in the barracks, the stones on the ground beneath my feet.
Approaching the camp I noted the remarkable similarities to the Vacaville Prison - the surrounding hills, the town at its base, the road that travels to and from the main gate. The only way in or out. The houses on the hills that overlook the barbed wire and stone walls. Who on earth would choose to live there? I cannot answer this question.
In the same way that one can't help but notice a giant industrial fortification in the distance when driving through Vacaville, one cannot help but notice Mauthausen when traveling through the town. From the right vantage point, its all visible: the guard towers, the lights, the barbed wire.
A common defense of complicit bystanders, those who lived near camps: "We didn't know what was going on. We didn't realize what was happening. We didn't know people were dying." Yet, it's impossible not to notice the armed guards surrounding the gates, the truckloads of supplies being wheeled in and out, the sounds and smells of a prison yard that waft to the town below. It's impossible.
A concentration camp does not spring up overnight. It is not zapped from another dimension, appearing suddenly, gobbling up bodies and lives. Walls are built, supplies are bought, infrastructure is built. The prison is staffed, the prisoners are shuffled in from surrounding areas. Having previously worked on research that later received a Lofland Award, I am very familiar with the interconnected structure that allows for atrocity and genocide to take place. (My research was on Dehomag/IBM and its role in the German census and subsequent role in concentration camps.) Companies produce products, they itemize and maintain the mechanical elements, they develop solutions for creating efficiency within a network of paying customers. In modern times, we call this "Logistics." To put it bluntly: if a bigger, more efficient crematorium needed to be built, the company responsible for manufacturing it would be invested in fulfilling that request. There is no plausible denial from those who stand to profit off human suffering.
Our tour guide, Daniel, began our tour by showing us the site of a soccer field that once existed right outside the camp gates. Mere meters from the gate, where humans were kept in inhumane conditions, were exterminated, were starved - SS guards happily played soccer on weekends. They were a championship team, and townspeople would come spectate, cheering them on. Didn't they smell the prison yard stench? The chatter from men who were confined to tiny spaces, or who worked under the blazing sun all afternoon? The sick and dying, who were placed in barracks behind the soccer field, their bodies piled in the dirt? Daniel told us of a man, who attended one of these soccer games. The man was young at the time of the game, and vaguely reminisced that he had seen bodies piled in the distance. It made little impact on a child who was excited to see a soccer game. Besides, he had grown up under the National Socialist regime. His parents may have been Nazis, his friends may have too. The prisoners were bad men, says the media. The state calls them criminals. They did illegal things, and their lives were not worth that of a true Austrian or German citizen. When one grows up surrounded by a convenient narrative, what would be gained by contesting it?
Dehumanization occurs daily. Like many aspects of society, it's a spectrum, it's not black or white, on or off. Maybe it's a word or phrase used against a certain minority. Maybe it's the person just "doing their job." Maybe it's a person who really believes they are doing the right thing, in order to save their country or race. But as Kluger states, the museum culture of camp sites has been formed by vagaries and neuroses. It's confusing: how do we acknowledge the dehumanization that takes place? We take pictures in front of the monuments and the landmarks. We walk through the places where millions of people were executed. We pay money to eat at the cafe established on the camp grounds. But Mauthausen is the land of ghosts, a world stuck in time. Everything in the camp is in place to establish a curated, specific memory.
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