Witness Testimonies

„I was convinced that I was never going to return home.“

„It was incredibly difficult to walk hand in hand but we thought it was a stylish thing.”

“I was a heavily pregnant skeleton.”

“I want to remind one of the heaps of dead bodies. They were numerous.“

„At liberation I’ll have a portrait of Lenin with me.”

„My biography reflects the contradictions of the 20th century in quite a typical way.“

„Finally, we helped each other..., a group to exchange good news, to comfort...“

“I was convinced I had to survive.“

“You cannot imagine what it means, being exposed to this martyrdom, this extermination and to so much suffering.“

“The camp is a parody of our modern society, monstrous and pushed to the limit.“

“Sometimes they beat you more, sometimes less. But they beat you every day.“

"I didn’t even know what politics meant.“

“When you arrive in camp with an idea for which you have fought earlier on and you see that this had made sense, you get some kind of moral support.”

“After Melk I was brought to a another, even worse hell...“

“I have never seen anybody who committed suicide.... It was their aim to kill us, why should we have helped them?“

“For a long time I didn’t notice that I had become a part of this death machinery.”

“My live is as follows, I am a veteran of the war, a participant of WW II, and a prisoner of the concentration camp Mauthausen…“

"When I look through the window of my memories I see nothing but tombstones.“

“The traces of the camp were quite persistent – till the last years.“