Tuesday 11 November 2014

My Remembrance Day at Mauthausen




GREECE
DO NOT FORGET US, WE WHO WERE KILLED HERE,
FOR WHEN EVIL IS FORGOTTEN IT IS LEAVE FOR IT TO BE REPEATED

IN REVERENCE AND SAD REMEMBRANCE
OF OUR SINTI AND ROMA
CHILDREN, WOMEN AND MEN WHO WERE MURDERED IN THE
MAUTHAUSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP.

ON 9TH MARCH 1945, SHORTLY BEFORE THE END OF THE WAR,
450 SINTI AND ROMA WOMEN AND CHILDREN WERE BROUGHT
FROM RAVENSBRUCK TO MAUTHAUSEN.
THE INFANTS AND CHILDREN WERE MURDERED UPON ARRIVAL.

WE THINK OF THE 500,000 OF OUR
PEOPLE, IN THE AREA OF NATIONAL SOCIALIST INFLUENCE, WHO
WERE VICTIMS OF GENOCIDE.
MAY 1998 

YOU FIND HERE THE MAUTHAUSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP
WHICH OPERATED FROM JUNE 1938 UNTIL 5 MAY 1945.
HERE AND IN NEARBY CAMPS THE NATIONAL SOCIALIST
EXECUTIONERS AND THEIR VASSALS BESTIALLY
MURDERED 122,766 PRISONERS INCLUDING
AS BELOW:
PRISONERS OF WAR COMPRISING SOVIET SOLDIERS AND
OFFICERS, AND
CITIZENS OF THE UDSSR 31,180
POLISH CITIZENS 30,203
HUNGARIAN CITIZENS 12,923
YUGOSLAV CITIZENS 12,870
 FRENCH CITIZENS 8,295
SPANISH CITIZENS 6, ??2
ITALIAN CITIZENS ?,75?
CZECHOSLOVAKIAN CITIZENS 4,473
GREEK CITIZENS 3,709
GERMAN ANTIFASCISTS 1,100
BELGIAN CITIZENS 742
AUSTRIAN ANTIFASCISTS 235
DUTCH CITIZENS 178
AFRICAN CITIZENS  
LUXEMBOURG CITIZENS
ENGLISH CITIZENS  
CITIZENS OF OTHER LANDS 









We'll come back to this when I have time to read and work through my rough notes. 


7 comments:

  1. Not sure I want to see more - these things are so awful, I always have a desire to bury my head in the sand.

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    1. Pat, I have to say that I never feel as you do. I always feel the sentiments expressed on the Greek memorial stone.

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  2. You must be profoundly moved Gwil?

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    1. Indeed I was, Dave. There was a gloom over the place and I alone the whole time so it really unreal. I absorbed the atmosphere like a sponge I think. As stated in the footnote I made some rough notes and will try and knock these into shape in due course.

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  3. Most Americans focus on the atrocities committed at Auschwitz, so I had to do a bit of self-education on this one. The profits realized by the Nazis through the "renting" of slave labor was an eye opener.

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  4. VH, I agree, there's nothing like a bit of self-education. I think we must dig a bit more for ourselves. We cannot always depend on mainstream's single track view of the world.

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  5. It is not as it should be in life.

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