PEA RIDGE — Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of articles by Culea Abraham, a 2008 graduate of Pea Ridge High School, who is a senior at College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, Mo. She is the daughter of Russ and Lisa Abraham of Pea Ridge. She traveled to World War II sites in Europe as one of 20 CofO students with 10 American World War II veterans to learn more about patriotism.

Mauthausen-Guten

MAUTHAUSEN, Austria - Just above a town called Mauthausen in the country of Austria, on the top of a hill there is a sad and painful history. Here lies the concentration camp that was one of the first concentration camps erected in Austria, and the last to be freed. An American soldier who had been there when they found this camp saidthat on the very first day they arrived to free these people, they buried 1,200 bodies of the prisoners. He said after that they averaged about 300 bodies a day.

When we arrived at the camp, it was a very damp and cold day. Charlie, my vet, had a very solemn look on his face as we walked into a room with a huge television screen and a lot of rows of benches. As we situated ourselves onto a bench, a video about the history of the concentration camp we were in. As I sat next to Charlie, I could feel his tension as photos of the people who survived from that concentration camp rolled across the screen.

The video included stories from some of those who survived the torturous days in this prison. One story that won’t leave my mind was from a prisoner from Czechoslovakia who was spared because he could speak German. Only, it shouldn’t be considered a blessing, because this was more of a curse for him.

Since he was able to speak both German and Czech, they required him to translate for them. He said that he was told to bring one prisoner in at a time. He then was told to tell them to remove their clothes. Next he translated to them that they must be blindfolded.

After they were blindfolded, he would tell them to begin counting to 10. As the prisoner counted to 10, petrol was entered into their blood stream through a needle.

This concentration camp was a granite farm.

Each day, after roll call was taken, the prisoners were forced to go down and dig granite out and carry about 50 kilos, or 100 pounds, at a time up an extremely tall hill. The stairs up the hill were known as the Stairway of Death. Many times as people would be carrying bricks of granite that weighed more than them, someone towards the top would lose their balance and fall backwards creating a domino effect of people falling over dead.

One day, when the Czech I mentioned earlier was working in the granite field near a pool of water, the guards ordered him to move away from the pool.

On the top of the hill he saw a line of Jewish prisoners.

The guards made the prisoner at the end of the line push the men in front ofhim off the edge of the cliff. If the fall didn’t kill them, they drowned. This wasn’t an unusual experience. The guards were meanest to the Jewish prisoners, just like everywhere else.

A thing we never hear about when we talk about concentration camps is escapes. In Mauthausen-Guten concentration camp, there was a block called Block 20, which was reserved for the worst of the prisoners, those who misbehaved. The prisoners in Block 20 planned and executed an escape. Many of the prisoners were too weak to make it very far and were caught quickly and killed. One man, however, made it down the hill to the small town of Mauthausen. There, he found a house, knocked on the door, and the woman who lived there helped him hide. He told the journey of his escape on the video at the concentration camp.

After we finished the video, most of the veterans went back to the tour bus to wait, they didn’t want to see any of this evil place. The college students, however, went out together to see where all this pain had once lived and breathed.

I walked with a friend down where the crematorium had been. There were roses and cards all over it. I turned around and walked into a darker room.

It was empty, except for a few spigots on the walls.

My heart felt heavy, like Iwas being crushed. I could almost feel death creeping all over the room even after 65 years of not being used. I turned to another door, any way to get out of that room.

I saw a sign on the wall, it was in another language so I used the sound piece they had given to me as I walked in. There was a number and I pushed it. The first two words sent a chill down my spine and I left that room as fast as possible as well.

The words I heard were, “Children’s quarters.” I didn’t even have to listen to the rest of the recording. I knew well enough that these children suffered maybe the most.

As I climbed out of the dungeon and back to the main street that runs through the middle of the camp, I met back up with some of my friends.

We walked over to the other end of the camp and saw a path leading towards the granite farm. We walked towards it. When we reached the steps, we saw a sign on which was written John 14:3.

As we began descending the stairs, we looked over the edge and I could see two different pools of water. The walls of the granite farm now had many weeds and plants growing all over them, but i could tell that there was something, even in this beautiful past, that was full of hurt. We were leaving to head back to the bus to go to the hotel for the night, and as we walked away I tried to figure out which of these peaceful looking pools were where the Jewish people that the guards pushed off the edge of the hill saw last.

All my life I have wondered if I would have been able to survive in a concentration camp. Now I have been to one. I’ve seen the rooms that had been completely overcrowded and full of bodies trying to sleep. I saw the place where people were showered with poison and cremated. I walked on the steps where many people couldn’t handle the weight of the stones anymore and fell over, praying it would end any minute. I know now, since I have seen the place full of death that I would never have had a chance to survive. When we pulled away, there was almost an audible sigh of relief from all of the World War II veterans. Relief that, because of what they did 65 years ago, no one would ever have to go through what those prisoners had gone through ever again.

School, Pages 12 on 02/23/2011