Thousands attend Mauthausen liberation commemoration
Camp was last to be liberated at end of war; Austrian president and chancellor present at ceremony
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MAUTHAUSEN, Austria — Austrian political leaders and foreign dignitaries joined thousands of people commemorating the liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp Sunday.
President Heinz Fischer and Chancellor Werner Faymann were among those attending Sunday’s ceremonies. The annual event has particular significance this year as the world marks the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.
Hundreds of thousands of people died at the western Austrian camp and its subsidiaries. Many were worked to death. Others were shot, gassed, or died through medical experiments.
The camp was liberated on May 5, 1945 by American troops. Its inmates were the last of all concentration camp prisoners to be set free by the Allies.
On Friday, an Austrian website run by an anti-Holocaust organization was hacked and displayed images of child pornography.
Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner has ordered a criminal investigation and condemned the “sick, criminal attack.”
The web pages of the Mauthausen Memorial Site were up again Friday after the offensive content was removed.
The organization is charge of maintaining as a memorial the Mauthausen concentration camp in western Austria. Hundreds of thousands died at the main camp and its subsidiaries.
Austria was annexed by Hitler’s Germany in 1938. Over the decades, Austrian public opinion has slowly shifted from considering the country a victim of the Nazis to recognition that it was complicit in the regime’s crimes.
The Times of Israel Community.