Concentration camp commemoration

9000 guests at the world’s largest liberation ceremony

More than 3000 young people were also among the guests.(Bild: Sebastian Philipp)

The liberation of the former Mauthausen concentration camp 79 years ago was commemorated on Sunday. More than 9,000 guests attended, including contemporary witnesses, government representatives and more than 3,000 young people.

The world's largest concentration camp liberation ceremony is traditionally attended every year by numerous international delegations and representatives from politics and society, who lay wreaths at the sarcophagus on the former roll call square and commemorate the victims.

100,000 victims in the concentration camp
It was recalled that around 200,000 people were imprisoned, tortured and around half of them murdered in the Mauthausen concentration camp and its more than 40 satellite camps. "All this was the law at the time." On May 7, 1945, the concentration camp was liberated by the 11th Armored Division of the US Third Army.

Many international visitors attended the commemorative event.(Bild: EPA)

Traditionally, wreaths are laid.(Bild: EPA)

Illuminating the legal system of the Nazi era
This year's thematic focus "Law and Justice under National Socialism" made it clear that law does not always mean justice. The National Socialists created a legal system that reflected their ideology and enabled the persecution, expropriation and murder of Jews, Roma and other groups.

The Federal President with his wife(Bild: EPA)

Many guests from the world of politics
Official Austria was represented on Sunday by Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen, Interior Minister Gerhard Karner and Constitutional Minister Karoline Edtstadler (both ÖVP) as well as Justice Minister Alma Zadic, Social Affairs Minister Johannes Rauch and Climate Protection Minister Leonore Gewessler (all Greens), and the Governor of Upper Austria Thomas Stelzer (ÖVP) also took part in the commemorative procession. Numerous representatives from the National Council, Federal Council, ÖVP, SPÖ, Greens, NEOS and KPÖ, religious communities and international guests from the victims' countries of origin paid their respects.