20,000 Visitors at Liberation Ceremony in Mauthausen

Van der Bellen urged not to look away. The President of the Jewish Community of Vienna (IKG), Oskar Deutsch, condemned Iran and Hamas for anti-Semitism.

Traditionally, delegations from all over the world come to the liberation ceremony in Mauthausen and lay wreaths at the former roll call square. The number of Holocaust survivors who can still participate is dwindling. This time, on the 80th anniversary of the liberation, three "Mauthausen babies" led the memorial procession: Hana Berger-Moran, Mark Olsky, and Eva Clarke were born a few days and weeks before the liberation in the concentration camp or on prisoner transports between the camps.

Van der Bellen: "At the beginning was the looking away"

Official Austria was represented alongside Van der Bellen by numerous members of the federal government - led by Chancellor Christian Stocker (ÖVP), Vice Chancellor Andreas Babler (SPÖ), and Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisiger (Neos) - as well as the two National Council Presidents Peter Haubner (ÖVP) and Doris Bures (SPÖ) and the Governor of Upper Austria Thomas Stelzer (ÖVP). Politicians traditionally do not give speeches at the event but participate silently in the procession.

King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia laid a white floral wreath in front of the sarcophagus. The Spaniards were among the first large groups of prisoners and were used for the construction of the infamous "Stairway of Death." Van der Bellen emphasized in a written statement that Mauthausen is a reminder to be vigilant. Because "at the beginning was the silence. At the beginning was the looking away, when anti-Semitism and racism showed their ugly face and gradually took hold of society." Stocker emphasized - also in a written statement - that Mauthausen "must always be a reminder to us of what authoritarian ideologies, hatred, and exclusion can lead to."

"Knowledge makes us responsible for a never again"

The Chairman of the Mauthausen Committee Austria (MKÖ), Willi Mernyi, also drew parallels to the present: "Many people are very pessimistic about the future and the future of their children," he said, "many think this leads to a situation like back then before National Socialism." But there is a big difference: "It may be that some of our ancestors could not know or did not want to know at the time of Adolf Hitler's rise to power where hatred, division, and anti-Semitism would lead. It may be that some of our ancestors could not know what would be possible. But we, today, here, we know it. And this knowledge makes us responsible for a 'never again,'" he appealed to the visitors. Guy Dockendorf, President of the Comité International de Mauthausen, encouraged the youth, in light of the strengthening of right-wing regimes and oligarchies worldwide that threaten democracy, the rule of law, and press freedom, in light of the rightward shift in the USA and Russian aggression in Ukraine, to carry forward the lessons from Mauthausen.

Traditionally, there is also an ecumenical service and celebrations of various victim groups and nations before the official ceremony. The Evangelical Lutheran Bishop Michael Chalupka reminded in his sermon that "the experiences made in places like this led to the international codification of human rights after the end of Nazi rule" and that with the founding of the United Nations, human rights were anchored in international law. "When today the universal validity of human rights is questioned and international law is trampled upon, we cannot remain silent," he warned.

Deutsch Warns of "Extermination Antisemitism" in the Middle East

The President of the Jewish Community of Vienna (IKG), Oskar Deutsch, also drew parallels to Iran and Hamas in his speech in front of the Israeli monument: "The ideological descendants of Nazism are still active today. They sing in their cellars of a seventh million, they sit in their offices of the Iranian regime in Tehran, where they work on the destruction of the Jewish state of Israel, or in the terror tunnels of Hamas, where they put their extermination antisemitism into practice and torture and murder Jews.

In the Mauthausen concentration camp and its over 40 subcamps, nearly 200,000 people from more than 40 nations were imprisoned between 1938 and 1945, about half of whom did not survive the murder machinery. On May 5, 1945, the camp was liberated by the US Army. The liberation celebration in Mauthausen is the largest in a whole series of similar events in the former subcamps, such as those held on Saturday at the sites of the former concentration camps Gunskirchen, Gusen, or Ebensee, or tomorrow, Monday, in Melk. All were - like the Festival of Joy last Thursday - or are under the annual motto "Together for a 'Never Again!'".

20,000 Visitors

According to a joint estimate by the MKÖ and the police, 20,000 people participated in the celebration. The next liberation celebration will take place on May 10, 2026.

(APA/Red)

This article has been automatically translated, read the original article here.