Mauthausen-Studien 15: Andreas Schrabauer

‘… und der Block war judenleer’ (‘… and the block was empty of Jews’) by Andreas Schrabauer was published as Volume 15 of the series ‘Mauthausen-Studien’.

This study looks at the persecution of Jews in the occupied Netherlands, the Reichskommissariat Niederlande, and reconstructs their deportation to Mauthausen on the basis of contemporary sources and eyewitness statements. It reveals the huge significance of the Mauthausen concentration camp in the terror system of the Nazi occupying powers. Even today, this camp is still deeply rooted in the collective memory of the Netherlands.

The antisemitic policies of the German occupiers in the Netherlands intensified following the February Strike of 1941 and its brutal suppression. In 1941 and 1942 the Nazi authorities carried out several waves of arrests and deported hundreds of Jewish men via other camps to the Mauthausen concentration camp. Because the Netherlands had been one of the main destinations for Jews fleeing Germany and Austria in the preceding years, this meant there were many German and Austrian émigrés among those arrested.

Once at the Mauthausen concentration camp, the majority of those deported became victims of targeted killing actions. Their swift deaths were reported in the Dutch media, meaning that the occupying authorities were soon deliberately using the threat of deportation to Mauthausen as a means of repression, as a deterrent and as a way to intimidate the Jewish population.

Andreas Schrabauer studied history and German at the University of Vienna. For his master’s thesis ‘”… und der Block war judenleer” – Die Verhaftung und Deportation jüdischer Männer in den Niederlanden und ihre Ermordung im Konzentrationslager Mauthausen’ he was awarded Mauthausen Memorial Research Prize 2018.