Mauthausen Liberation Memorial – US 3rd Army
Details:
In an internal courtyard against a barbed wire stonewall.
Plaque
Three large white marble inscribed plaques.
From the U.S. Holocaust Museum website:
Liberation of Mauthausen- May 5, 1945
As Allied and Soviet forces advanced into Germany, the SS evacuated concentration camps near the front lines to prevent the liberation of large numbers of prisoners. Prisoners evacuated by train, by truck, and by forced march from Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen, and Gross-Rosen began arriving at Mauthausen in early 1945. As a result, the camp—as well as most subcamps—became lethally overcrowded, with existing dreadful conditions deteriorating still further. Thousands of prisoners died from starvation or disease. Typhus epidemics further reduced the camp's population.
Mauthausen’s gas chamber remained operative until the very last days of the war. The SS murdered nearly 3,000 prisoners from the infirmary after a selection on April 20, 1945. The camp authorities carried out the last mass murder in the gas chamber on April 28, 1945. The victims were 33 Upper Austrian Social Democratic and Communist opponents of the regime.
On May 3, 1945, the SS abandoned the camp to the custody of a guard unit of 50 Viennese firefighters, who remained on the perimeter of the camp. Members of an “International Committee” formed by the prisoners in the last days of April administered the camp as units of the US Army arrived at the camp and secured the surrounding area on May 5. Further units, including the 11th “Thunderbolt” Armored Division (and the 26th Yankee” Infantry Division and the 65th "Battle Axe" Infantry Division) of the Third Army, arrived in the succeeding days.
Sub camps were liberated by the above units and the 71st and 80th Infantry Divisions.
Liberator Division: For their part in liberating these camps, these divisions were accorded “liberator” status in 1985 by a joint program of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the U.S. Army Center of Military History, which was an effort on the part of these two entities to recognize U.S. Army units that took part in freeing prisoners from Nazi concentration camps.
Monument Text:
The text on the plaques is written in German and English. The English reads:
65th Infantry Division Plaque:
IN RECOGNITION OF THE
US ARMY
65TH INFANTRY DIVISION
&
131TH EVACUATION HOSPITAL
WHO
PROVIDED HUMANITARIAN SERVICES
FOR THE MAUTHAUSEN SURVIVORS
AT THE TIME OF THEIR LIBERATION
IN MAY 1945
11TH ARMORED DIVISION PLAQUE:
IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE
MEMBERS OF THE 11TH ARMORED
DIVISION, THIRD US ARMY
WHO LIBERATED
CONCENTRATION CAMPS AT
MAUTHAUSEN, GUSEN,
EBENSEE AND OTHERS LOCATED
NEARBY IN UPPER AUSTRIA
IN MAY 1945. THEIR DEEDS
WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN
26TH INFANTRY DIVISION PLAQUE:
IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE
26TH “YANKEE” INFANTRY
DIVISION, THIRD US ARMY
WHO LIBERATED
MAUTHAUSEN CONCENTRATION
CAMP SITES IN THE VICINITY OF
LINZ, AUSTRIA IN MAY 1945
IN MEMORY OF ALL
MAUTHAUSEN VICTIMS
2003
