KZ GUSEN MEMORIAL COMMITTEE

within ARBEITSKREIS FUER HEIMAT-, DENKMAL- UND GESCHICHTSPFLEGE
and Local-International Platform ST. GEORGEN/GUSEN, Austria

KZ Mauthausen-GUSEN Info-Pages

Local-International Commemoration
May 7, 2005

11th Ard Div Commemorative Plaque

Mrs. Liese Prokop, the Austrian Federal Minister of the Interior, thanked the liberators and decorated them with "The Senior Meritious Award of the Republic of Austria". Mr. Vince Mahler of the 11th Ard Div Association together with members of the KZ Gusen Memorial Committee managed the errection of the new monument in the months before the inauguration.
This new commemorative plaque was sponsored by members of the 11th Armored Division Association and reads:


Veterans of the 11th Armored Division
United States Third Army
KZ Mauthausen and KZ Gusen Memorial

In Honor an in Memory of those who perished in the Holocaust,
of those who died as victims of National Socialism, and
of our Comrades in Arms who gave their lives for the restoration of freedom in Europe.
This plaque is presented to the Republic of Austria
by veterans of the Eleventh Armored Division and attached units
of the United States Third Army, Liberators of Mauthausen Concentration Camp,
and Gusen Camps I, II and III.

Dedicated by the 11th Armored Division Association
May 7, 2005

The plaque is made of bronze and is mounted on a granite stone. It was inaugurated by a delegation of the 11th Armored Division Association in the presence of Colonel Slayers, the Military Attache at the American Embassy to Austria, and Mrs. Liese Prokop, the Austrian Federal Minister of the Interior.

Mr. Stanislaw Lesczynsky, Polish survivor of KZ Gusen I, giving his address of thanks to the assembled US liberators. Mr. Jean Gavard, French survivor of KZ Gusen I, giving his address of thanks.
The words of Minister Prokop had been (translation by Siegi Witzany-Durda):


Ladies and Gentlemen,

When American soldiers liberated Concentration Camp Gusen 60 years ago they were confronted with atrocities that until then were beyond human imagination. In the heart of Europe, in the heart of the so called civilized world, pictures of murder, death and destruction, of unspeakable suffering and of an inhumanity that cannot be put in words unfolded before them.

More than 70,000 people were cruelly taken away from their loved ones, and forced to experience the execution of Nazi ideology, the principle "extermination by labour" firsthand. More than half of those deported to Gusen did not survive. They fell victim to violence, malnutrition, a lack of medical help, and the reckless exploitation of their labour.

60 years after the end of the National Socialistīs extermination policy these images of inhumanity threaten to disappear.

With every survivor, every witness who can no longer bear witness in person, the memory more and more becomes a part of history. Thus, what was unimaginable inhumanity may disappear from our imagination if we donīt take our responsibility seriously and keep it alive, as a warning of the scourge of racism and anti-semitism and a legacy for future generations.

This is the reason why places like the Gusen Memorial are so important, because they take on the history of the survivors, assume the burden of their memories, their duty to bear witness.

It is our duty not to let the inhumanity that happened here become imaginable again.
This is the mission of those who perished in Gusen as well as the survivors.

The Ministry of the Interior is aware if this duty.
That is why - together with the "Personenkomitee Gusen" - we did everything to take up to this responsibility.

The exhibition at the Gusen VisitorsīCenter shows pictures taken by the liberators, where countless corpses lying around in camp can be seen. These pictures give some idea of what happened then.

In the name of the victims we keep the memory alive.
In deep mourning, we commemorate the victims of Gusen.

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Most recent updates of this page were made on
2005-10-28 by Rudolf A. HAUNSCHMIED,
Martha GAMMER, Siegi WITZANY-DURDA and
Jan-Ruth MILLS