Austrian Press Agency (APA) (11/20/2007)

In Remembrance of NS Victims

Names are engraved into fifty-one pieces of railroad tracks

Linz – A commemorative plaque which was unveiled on November 27 in Mauthausen serves as reminder of the victims of National Socialism. In the Mauthausen concentration camp, more than 200,000 people were held prisoners and almost half of them failed to survive the annihilation.

Prisoners to the Mauthausen concentration camp were transported by trucks and finally brought to Upper Austria by train. Almost seventy years following, there is nothing left as a reminder of the terrible martyrdom, explained the organization, “perspektive mauthausen.” With support of the Community and of the Austrian Federal Railway Company (ÖBB) the initiative was established to erect a commemorative plaque.

The idea was created as a project by students from the ÖBB workshops in Linz. The names of the prisoners engraved into fifty-one pieces of railroad tracks are to personify the masses of men and women who were transported from the railway station to the concentration camp three kilometers away.