I dedicated 6 hours today to the Mauthausen Memorial Site with rain falling during half my visit and return trip to the hotel, and it was the Austrian Camino that led the ascending way from my hotel to the Site. The clouds and the drizzle added to the somberness. Kudos to the Mathausen Memorial Site IT support team—theirs is a wonderful app that you can download and through it take your tour at each of the audio markers or play it at home using the index.
How do I even summarize my experience today—my feelings—maybe little different from seeing Dachau 60 years ago and Auschwitz (on my long Camino) just 8 years ago. But, yes, there is a difference as I see the ever-optimistic me aging and resigning to the reality that Hitlerites will continue to come along and followers will continue to rally with them and appease them. And the good thing is that both will lose in the end (history bears that out) but at what cost! It seems unavoidable—oh, maybe the Hegelian conflict theory they taught me 60 some years ago was right.
The few pictures I posted capture the mood: the gas chamber, the crematorium, stair of death that the inmates had to carry heavy pieces of granite from the quarry to the top (level of their camp). Individual countries have erected some very deeply moving memorials.
