Former Nazi Concentration Camp Liberation Commemorated in AustriaAround 7,000 people assembled Sunday at the former Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria to mark the 56th anniversary of the liberation of the detention center.At the beginning of the ceremony, some former prisoners raised a "Mauthausen 1938--1945" banner when leading into the camp the paraders from Austria, other European countries, Canada and the United States. Delegations from many countries headed by 40 ambassadors and other diplomatic representatives presented wreaths to the monument of the victims. Those attending the ceremony this year included many domestic and foreign youngsters as usual. Austrian Interior Minister Ernst Strasser and President of the Austrian Parliament Heinz Fischer told the assembly to guard against intolerant, anti-Semitic and xenophobia rhetorics and actions. Strasser noted that the Mauthausen Memorial should be a place to both memorize the persecuted and tell European youngsters how to draw a correct conclusion from historical events. Fischer said that racism, chauvinism and anti-foreign actions should not be tolerated, and people of all nations should fight these anti-human ideas from early on. The construction of a concentration camp at Mauthausen, about 100 kilometers west of Vienna, to put in jail Austria's progressives, European civilians and war prisoners began in August 1938, five months after Austria became a vassal state of Hitler's Third Reich. More than 200,000 people had been jailed at the Mauthausen and 50 other subsidiary concentration camps before they were liberated on May 5, 1945 by U.S. forces. Over 100,000 prisoners perished as victims of gun shot, poison gas and torture during those seven years. After World War II, the concentration camp was rebuilt into a memorial. Commemorations were held here each year in early May as of 1947. Many countries set up cenotaphs inside or outside the camp. A Ukrainian monument for the victims of the country and a monument in the name of the European youth were also unveiled at the beginning of Sunday's ceremony. |
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