History of the Memorial
The former Mauthausen concentration camp, 1948 (photo credits: Mauthausen Memorial / Collections, Collection BHÖ)
Only a few years after the war had ended, the former Mauthausen Concentration Camp was transformed into a Memorial, upon which the commemorative culture of the Austrian Republic as well as of the victims nations came to materialise. On the other hand, the sites of the former satellite camps and of the branch camp Gusen were long repressed from commemoration by state authority. While at all sites the remains of the satellite camps were being removed, concentration camp survivors and relatives of people killed in the concentration camps were thwarting the process of repression by establishing commemorative markers. Upon their initiatives, public memorials were established in Ebensee, Gusen and Melk.