Concentration Camp in Ebensee

On the 10th of November my Rotary Club invited me to come and have a tour of a Concentration Camp that is about 20 minutes away from Bad Ischl, in a small town called Ebensee. This Concentration Camp was not only used for killing people, but was also used as a work camp. This was not the largest or one of the well known camps but is considered one of the most gruesome camps. More than 27,000 people came to this camp during the war. To put this in perspective the town, Ebensee, at the time had about only 9,000 inhabitants. Over 8,300 died, over 1,700 were so sick from the conditions they were unable to work. After the camps liberation, many more died from the poor life they had.

This was looking into one of the tunnels. There are 10 tunnels and all together is about 5.7 km long

The Ebensee camp was also part of the Mauthausen network, one of the biggest networks in Austria during World War II. The center of the Mauthausen network is located in Linz.

In memory of everyone who stayed in this camp or died here

Tunnels that the prisoners were forced to work in

The rags are actually scarves that were tied around prisoners necks. Different colors meant different race and a different status. Jews were at the bottom and German speakers were near the top. 

About 1/3 of the camp were Jews, others were from Poland and also there were several Gypsies. 

More of the tunnels that they were forced to work on/in.

Towards the end of the war, the Nazi's attempted to cover up the awful crimes committed and tried to kill any survivors. One way they did this was sending all the workers/prisoners into the tunnels and then bombing the entrance. This would kill anyone by the entrance or leave people trapped inside, eventually killing them as well.

These were identity cards from the prisoners

  

This was a prisoner request form. The generals running the Concentration Camps would send requests for more prisoners and also the fittest ones. Many times they would trick other camps into taking the weak prisoners.

A door leading deeper into the tunnels.


Thank you Rotary, though this a darker point in history it is very insightful and was a good experience, thank you.