Mauthausen – Life Near the Concentration Camp

A Narrative History

Abstract

The interactions between Nazi concentration camps and their near surroundings have gained increasing attention in the last years. The author deals with this topic by narrative interviews with people who lived in the settlements near the camp of Mauthausen. Building on four of these interviews, the article focuses on locations along the path from the railway-station to the camp. The interviewees were children, teenagers or young adults in those days. They had various points of contact with the sphere of the camp: as neighbours, play- and class-mates of the children of SS-officers, as an apprentice in the SS-company DEST, in everyday occupational life, or because they were living directly beside the camp-area. They all have memories of various contacts and incidents in relation to the concentration camp. It is often striking and surprising how close the people living in these areas were to the atrocities. The interviews refer to many aspects that are not documented in any other way. Therefore, these sources – with all their uncertainties – are indispensable for a microhistorical approach to this subject.