Today, I cried a lot. Many people know this about me, but I cannot handle violence of any kind. I cover my eyes during fight scenes in movies, and I have anxiety attacks when people yell or scream at me. I physically cannot handle violence.
So, today, when we visited the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, I cried for a very long time. So many people died there. There was so much unnecessary cruelty. I wasn't aware that Mauthausen was a work camp. The whole thing is actually one giant stone quarry, and the prisoners were made to mine in the quarry every day. They would go on this massive trek from the top of the camp to the bottom of the stone quarry, where they would lift incredibly heavy stones, and carry them back up. People passed out from exhaustion, and when this happened, they were shot on sight by Nazi guards. Will and I made the trek down to the stone quarry, and it was difficult. The path was paved incredibly unevenly, and even in my good boots, I was slipping a lot. The last part of the hike had about 200 of the steepest stairs you have ever seen. It took me a solid 10 minutes just to get down the stairs themselves. At the bottom, there was a lot of space, and a really beautiful green meadow. There were also a lot of stone pieces and rocks everywhere. Will and I decided that to honor the people who died hauling stones from the quarry, we would carry stones all the way back up to the top. We placed them on one of the monuments honoring the dead. Concentration camps are some of the saddest things in human history. While I have trouble stomaching it, I think everyone should experience one and do the research behind it. It is hugely important to acknowledge the atrocities of the human race, so that we can work hard to avoid making the same massive mistakes in the future. I have included photos of the quarry and our hike, pictures of different areas of the main camp--including one of the ovens used to burn the bodies of dead prisoners, and photos of one of the cemeteries that was built on the grounds after the war ended.
1 Comment
Mom
9/22/2016 12:54:45 pm
This was beautiful and very thought provoking. We should never forget. I am glad that you had the opportunity to honor them the way that you did. I lived it vicariously through your tribute and it brought tears to my eyes. Thank you for sharing. I hope that if the world ever did lead to a horrible situation like theirs, that we could be as strong as they were.
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Mariah AllenI am a BYU student majoring in English and spending a semester interning and studying abroad in Vienna Austria. Archives
October 2016
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