Travel Logistics: Linz to Mauthausen Memorial

Most convenient way would be by taxi or private transfer. You could also rent a car for the day. Public transport is not very convenient, especially on a Sunday.

Emily: Thanks for the prompt response. I had suspected as much.

I'm not sure what's different about a Sunday. On that date, there are direct trains at 8:30 or 10:30 which take only a half hour. Ricks book provides phone numbers to reserve the local Taxi Brixner for the last three miles of the trip. There's a direct return train at 14:59 which you'd probably want; the next one is two hours later with a connection.

Laura: I was not aware of the availability of the taxi. Certainly an option that I had not previously considered. Thanks for watching out for me :)

~Darrel

Laura - in Austria, in general, public transport runs on an abbreviated schedule during Sundays and holidays. You will find that trains to not run as frequently as on, say, a Monday.

If you look at the return schedule from Mauthausen to Linz, for example, you would see that there are only direct trains from Mauthausen to Linz on 13 Sept at 14:59 and 20:13. All other trains require a connection in St. Valentin. On a Monday, as a comparison, there are direct trains nearly every hour.

All: Just got back from a very worthwhile visit to the Mauthausen memorial. First: the logistics. We took one of the regional trains which was direct from Linz to Mauthausen--cost per person was €5. As had been recommended, we had pre-arranged a taxi at the Mauthausen train station, which took us to the memorial at a cost of €15. The driver gave us his card and told us to have one of the folks at the memorial call him when we were ready to go. The return cost was €15 and we gave him a few euros as a tip. We took the train back to Linz--this one involved one train change--no problem as we remained on the same platform for the connecting train which came 7-8 minutes later. After being there, I would recommend the train and taxi option. The memorial is about 4-5 kilometers (2.5 to 3 miles) from the train station with about half of the distance going uphill, with some of the route fairly steep.

Second: the experience. This was our third visit to a concentration camp. We have been to Dachau in Germany and Auschwitz in Poland. For whatever reason, Mauthausen was not as "eerie" as the other two camps. Perhaps it was because about two-thirds of the camp was only the foundations or outlines of barracks and buildings, and perhaps because the existing structures were empty. Or, it could be that the atrocities that occurred were described in a somewhat academic and clinical fashion. The museum did a very good job of providing an overview of the events in German history leading up to WWII and the development of the concentration camp system. The displays focused on Mauthausen and contextualized the camp and it's satellite camps and their evolution. We strongly recommend walking to the "stairway of death" area--for us, this was the most unpleasant and stark visual representation of the camp and its atrocities. Surprisingly, at the head of the stairs, the panels are only in German, French, and Russian--there is no English. Fortunately, I speak French and was able to translate. The panels described the SS acts of unfathomable cruelty and horrific violence.

Hi,

It's quite understandable that the explanations are in Russian, German, and French. Numerous French civilians ended up at Mauthausen and perished. Russian officer POWs were sent to Mauthausen. Did the explanations include that of the Russian officer break-out in 1945 called the "Hasenjagd," where the local towns people joined the SS in hunting down and shooting the survivors like rabbits?