“Peace, Freedom” – Mauthausen Memorial in the context of the war in Ukraine

In keeping with this year’s theme, “Political Resistance,” Mernyi reminded everyone who thought differently about politics, who were “systematically persecuted and murdered” by the Nazis. He stressed that it is still important to resist today: “So we see it as our duty to say clearly and unequivocally ‘no’ in a military conflict!” The chairman of the Comité International de Mauthausen, Guy Dockendorf, also wrote in connection with the war in Ukraine: He recalled the many Russian and Ukrainian prisoners of war in the Nazi camps, who were counted in the same category of prisoners there. “As citizens of the Soviet Union, you played your part in the common struggle against the Nazi aggressor.”

The celebration is traditionally attended by delegations from all over the world, as the prisoners at Mauthausen came from more than 70 countries. After the Russian attack on Ukraine, the ambassadors of Russia and Belarus were asked not to come by the organizers. However, aid organizations, survivors and their relatives from these countries were welcome. At the Ukrainian monument was an exhibition devoted to the war that is currently raging there. Photos of civilians in air raid shelters, of mass exodus and destruction from present-day Ukraine were interspersed with analogous motifs from World War II – images of terrifying resemblance.

One survivor attends celebration
On the roll call square, large format photos of Mauthausen survivors with calls for peace and solidarity in numerous languages ​​commemorated the approximately 200,000 inmates from the concentration camps, about half of whom were murdered or subjected to the brutal prison conditions. Only one survivor was present at the liberation ceremony: Daniel Chanoch (90), from Lithuania and now living in Israel, was liberated on May 5, 1945 from Gunskirchen concentration camp, one of the many sub-camps of Mauthausen. He was then twelve years old. To this day, he works tirelessly as a contemporary witness to keep the memory alive. This week he presented his book “Telling to live – Life is a matter of seconds and millimeters”.

During the actual ceremony, during which the representatives of numerous nations and organizations paraded past the sarcophagus in the center of the monument, the Russian delegation was announced only as the “Coordinating Council of the Organizations of Russian Compatriots in Austria”. The Ukrainian delegation received a long and hearty round of applause. The conclusion was traditionally drawn by the American delegation: the camp was liberated by American soldiers in May 1945.

“Here sadness is combined with the will to live”
Officially Austria was represented by the Governor of Upper Austria Thomas Stelzer (ÖVP), Minister of the Interior Gerhard Karner, Minister of Constitutional Affairs Karoline Edtstadler (both ÖVP), Minister of Justice Alma Zadic and Minister of Climate Leonore Gewessler (both Greens) . Last year, the ÖVP government team stayed away from the commemoration, which had sparked criticism. Former Federal President Heinz Fischer was also present.

In the run-up to the celebration, diocesan bishop Manfred Scheuer van Linz praised resistance fighters as “beacons against resignation to fate”. Active resistance finds “its justification in the right of self-defense, which is also recognized by Catholic ethics and purported to limit the state to its function of common good”. Evangelical Bishop Michael Chalupka recalled that practicing religion in the Mauthausen concentration camp was punishable by death. In Mauthausen, “pain meets hope. Here sadness is combined with the will to live,” said Orthodox Archpriest Ioannis Nikolitsis.

SPÖ chairman Pamela Rendi-Wagner emphasized via broadcast that “the National Socialist atrocities must never be forgotten”, which also means “preserving humanity and resolutely against all forms of hatred, exclusion and violence”.

The 2023 liberation ceremony will take place on May 7 and will be themed “civil courage”.