Book Presentations

Stephan Matyus/Ilsen About
the visible part. Presentation of the revised edition

The liberation in May 1945 marked a turning point in the photographic documentation of the camp. A wide range of photographers, including liberated prisoners, journalists and American soldiers, provided unembellished visual evidence of the horrors of the camps. The photographs were intended to show the world the consequences of Nazi ideology and, at the same time, provide evidence of the crimes in the concentration camps. However, they also document the will of the survivors to gradually reclaim their stolen individuality. Visitors will also have the chance to view the exhibition the visible part in Objekt 10 during the book launch.

The revised edition was part of the project ‘Museale Intervention’, financed by

Thu, 13.03.2025, 5:30 pm
Birago Pioneer Barracks, Objekt 10, Prinzlstrasse 22, 3390 Melk

Bertrand Perz/Christian Rabl
KZ Melk und Projekt Quarz. Geschichte und Gedenken (Melk Concentration Camp and Project Quarz. History and Commemoration)
from the series Mauthausen-Studien

The study begins by looking at the history of ‘Project Quarz’ to move Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG’s arms production to underground facilities. In the space of just one year, some 14,400 prisoners were used as forced labourers to build a huge tunnel complex under the Wachberg hill near Roggendorf. The book then turns to developments around the former crematorium after 1945 which, despite heavy opposition, has become a central site of remembrance of the nearly 5,000 victims of the Melk concentration camp.

Thu, 10.04.2025, 6:30 pm
Birago Pioneer Barracks, Objekt 10, Prinzlstrasse 22, 3390 Melk

Christian Angerer
‘Lager zu Mauthausen’ – Ein Konzentrationslager in der nationalsozialistischen Öffentlichkeit (‘The Camp at Mauthausen’ – a concentration camp in the eyes of the Nazi public)
from the series Mauthausen-Studien

The Mauthausen concentration camp lay at the top of a hill and was visible for miles around. The SS committed some of its crimes in full view of the local population near the camp. Whatever those who witnessed this thought about it, they remained silent, for a variety of reasons. The Nazi newspapers reported little about the Mauthausen concentration camp; if they did, it was as a camp for ‘career criminals’. Mauthausen was generally associated with the granite quarries and the concentration camp itself was pushed to the margins of perception.

On 5 July at 10:00 am the author will lead a themed tour of the Mauthausen Memorial looking at public perceptions of the Mauthausen concentration camp.

In cooperation with

Wed, 18.06.2025, 6:30 pm
Wien Museum, Karlsplatz 8, 1040 Vienna

Enrique Calcerrada Guijarro
Überleben in Mauthausen-Gusen (Surviving in Mauthausen-Gusen)
from the series Mauthausen-Erinnerungen

Enrique Calcerrada Guijarro, born in Madrid in 1918, was 21 years old when he fled from Spain to France to escape the troops of General Franco. After the Wehrmacht invaded France, he was taken prisoner by the Germans in June 1940. Like thousands of other supporters of the Spanish Republic, the Nazis deported him to the Mauthausen concentration camp and from there to the Gusen branch camp, where he remained a prisoner for more than four years. In the 1970s he wrote down his memories of his imprisonment, which were published in 2003, shortly before his death. The book was reissued in 2022 and the Mauthausen Memorial is now publishing it for the first time in German.

On 15 November at 10:00 am a themed tour in Gusen will look at Calcerrada Guijarros’s memoir, linking it to today’s memorial site and beyond.

Fri, 14.11.2025, 5:30 pm
Gusen Information Centre