Mauthausen Moments

Share

Many Americans seem surprised to discover how many Germans deny the existence of the Concentration Camps during World War II. We trust those who tell us about the atrocities they witnessed, particularly when those people are grandparents who helped liberate the camps. We marvel that the locals could deny the existence of camps in their own backyards. However, at the same time, many of us have no idea that German and Japanese citizens (Korimatsu v United States) were interned in the United States or that after the war German civilians were housed in camps under atrocious conditions (Rheinwiesenlager). Perhaps we feel this way because we just weren't taught any better, because the time we have in school to learn is limited to the amount of information we could absorb. Perhaps we feel this way because we do not want to know any better. At some point, each of us experiences a Mauthausen Moment, where we decide if we want to only see the land of our nativity through only rose colored glasses. Despite evidence to the contrary, despite experience, and despite the duplicity that exists when some atrocity of that scale looms in our own back yard, we lionize ourselves and paint all others in caricature. You see, acknowledging the true purpose of Mauthausen means acknowledging that some of what we believe and value and "know" is based on half-truths and whole lies.

Experiencing Mauthausen

While working as a missionary in Austria, our mission zone opted to use one of our monthly activities to visit the Mauthausen main camp near Linz, Austria, which was the center of our Zone. The approach to Mauthausen is mostly clear, but on the path we tred, shortly before you spot the main camp, it is obscured from view. Before you see the buildings still extant, the stench assaults your nasal cavity. You can smell death. At least one of our company vomited at the smell. Even if you've never smelt burnt human flesh, you know that's what it is, because you know where you are going, even though this was not an extermination camp. Many of the prisoners here, since most of those sent to Mauthausen were Polish and Soviet POWs, were shot for failure to salute their captors or died in accidents. Only 25% of those interned in Mauthausen survived the war. Mauthausen had one of the highest rates of death of all the KZ Lagern. Mauthausen is centered around a stone quarry, with its infamous stairs of death, from which a fair few number of prisoners fell. In subsequent visits to the towns between Wels and Linz, Austrians with whom we spoke denied having any idea there was a camp there. In some cases, they deny the existence of the camp even now. I think they didn't want to know. You see, in order to have a Mauthausen Moment, you must deny things that you know because to acknowledge them means that many of the things to which you desperately cling as virtues in yourself, your nation, your dogma, or your world of view must wash away because of the sandy foundation on which they are predicated. You see, if Austrians admit that Mauthausen existed or what happened there, they would have to admit everything complicit in their own actions that made it so.

Evidence of Mauthausen

Every psychological attempt to conceal the Mauthausens of our lives ignores the evidence of its erection. Whether we're ignoring our own flaws or duplicity or we weigh our strengths against another's weaknesses, Mauthausen Moments are preceded by a campaign of misinformative propaganda. Imagine the scope of building the camp, the construction in a time when employment in Austria/Germany were very low, when jobs were few and when the people were poor. Nobody noticed? Imagine the nationalization of industries and how the industries ran but the employment rolls never decreased because they were worked by slaves and prisoners. You stand on the train platforms in Attnang-Puchheim and see freight trains full of people roll through and never bother to ask where they went or who they were? I mean, it's not like the passenger trains; these people were shipped as FREIGHT. Yet, they were "deplorables" and not worth the time and attention necessary to really worry about their disposition. By the time the war ended, greater Mauthausen stretched over hundreds of miles, dotting the countryside with camps in places like Ebensee, Gusen, Amstetten and Melk, all of which are places I walked as a missionary. People living there today act as if nothing bad ever happened there. You can be sure that locals participated in the erection of the camp, its staffing, its supervision, and its supply. You know that because some of the people living there were good National Socialists. I know; I met a few, including an Oberscharfuehrer whose rank I recognized when he brought his uniform to the door. And just who did the Germans think built their Messerschmidt fighter jets that came from caves under the camps? The smelters and industries ran, and the allies bombed the steel factory outside Linz, but American bombers didn't bomb Mauthausen. Why not?

Deciding to believe despite duplicity

People will believe a lie for two reasons. Either they are hoping that it's true or they are afraid it might be. IN the modern world we see the same trend, whether with politics, religion, economics or even romance, people delude themselves into thinking that what they hope is the same as what they have reason to think is true. Reasonable thoughts come from evidence; hope persists despite its absence. Life is then full of Mauthausen Moments, where we commit to something either believing it or ignoring it despite evidence to the contrary. We hold onto beliefs despite evidence to the contrary and we imagine evidence for other ideas where none exists. You come to believe in a thing, a person, or an idea, and you commit to it, because if you admit you are wrong you must admit that effort and energy and belief has been cast behind a fraudulent or corrupt thing. You revere it, see only it's virtues, and you throw your weight behind it to make it possible and sometimes even to help it succeed. Then, you learn that the rosy parts aren't the only parts or worse that the rosy parts are not even true. At this point, your Mauthausen Moment requires you to admit that you were wrong and that you helped or at least sat by while something atrocious went on right under your nose. Every German had to endure a Mauthausen Moment. Many of them realized that they had been fed a lie. Those Germans greeted me with open arms, grateful for the ancestors of my countrymen who treated them kindly, offered them food, and helped rebuild their shattered cities and world view. Denying Mauthausen means denying yourself the ability to move on, to move forward.

At one point in your life, if not more, you'll have a Mauthausen moment, the moment where you have to decide whether you are going to admit Mauthausen exists or keep pretending that it doesn't. You can acknowledge the signs or you can ignore them. You can see the virtues only or you can see something warts and all. You can help things fail, you can help evil things succeed either by acting outright to assist or by inaction against it. When we do not protest the establishment of Mauthausen, we essentially allow Mauthausens to be built in our lives, our minds, our communities, and our nations. Only you can make the decision about whether or not you acknowledge Mauthausen exists, and the people who know it's there will not understand you if you deny its existence. For those who deny the existence of Mauthausen, they cannot expect ANY common ground with those who recognize it; for those who recognize it, they must accept there is no convincing those who reject it. For the True Believer, they will either prove their ideology true or die trying. You see, admitting that Mauthausen exists means admitting all the thing that made it possible and admitting, even if you played no part in establishing it, you were complicit by inaction. In the end Mauthausen Moments are invitations to acknowledge truth, admit mistakes and seek correction and direction. Admitting Mauthausen is the first step in correcting the problems that it created and in redeeming those hurt by what happened there. The quote oft attributed to Edmund Burke seems prescient: "All that is necessary for the success of evil in this world is for good men to do nothing." The fact that good people didn't act allowed the Mauthausens of Hitler's Germany to be built, to spread, and to commit the atrocities for which they are known. When your Mauthausen Moment comes, you will learn about yourself, but more importantly the world will know you as you really are.