The Register of Shadows — Decode the Mauthausen Deportation Records

Your investigation begins at the Mauthausen Memorial, on a hill overlooking the town of Mauthausen in Upper Austria. This site, established as a Nazi concentration camp in 1938, was the main camp of a network of nearly 100 subcamps. As Simon Wiesenthal, you examine the first traces left by the Nazis. The Mauthausen Memorial, managed by the Republic of Austria since 1949, is a crucial place of remembrance. Walking through the paths, you try to visualize the daily life of thousands of prisoners, whose identities are at the heart of your mission for Mauthausen. Every visible element today, from the barracks foundations to the first commemorative monuments, provides a clue to reconstruct the deportation lists.

On the Appellplatz, the central roll-call square of Mauthausen camp, you grasp the extent of the horror. Covering approximately 10,000 square meters, this place was used for daily prisoner assemblies from 1938. It was here that thousands of lives were shattered, enduring prolonged exposure to the elements and violence. Public executions and brutal punishments took place here. As Simon Wiesenthal, you search for names in the registers, trying to identify the victims who perished in this square. Commemorative plaques were added in the 1950s, but your augmented reality reveals fragments of history, faces, stories etched into the collective memory of Mauthausen.

The Fallschirmspringerwand, or 'Parachutists' Wall,' confronts you with one of the most extreme cruelties of Mauthausen camp. This 36-meter-high cliff edge, located in the camp quarry, was mockingly named by the SS for forced jumps. From 1939 to 1945, hundreds of prisoners were pushed or forced to jump to their deaths. This site, linked to the granite quarry operations where prisoners worked under lethal conditions, is now marked with interpretive panels since the 1960s. Your objective is to find correlations between the quarry death lists and the general registers of Mauthausen camp, to reveal the extent of these atrocities in the Upper Austria region.

Your path then leads you to the Todesstiege, the 'Stairs of Death,' a poignant symbol of exploitation and extermination at Mauthausen. These 186 steep granite steps, built by prisoners in 1939, connected the quarry to the camp. Prisoners were forced to carry 50kg stones up the stairs, many dying from exhaustion or falls. This forced labor system also included systematic killings by pushing prisoners down. As Simon Wiesenthal, you ascend these preserved steps, aware that each step was an ordeal for those who preceded you. You search for names, dates, and information in the archives to document these disappearances, essential to your mission in Mauthausen.

Finally, your quest for truth brings you to the Raum der Namen, the 'Room of Names,' opened in 2003 within the former camp laundry building. This memorial room contains the names of nearly 200,000 registered prisoners, searchable via a database since 2014. It is here, at the heart of the Mauthausen Memorial, that your work finds its full meaning. You compare deportation registers and victim archives, seeking to complete each file, to give an identity to every shadow. The Internationales Denkmal, unveiled in 1968 on the former Appellplatz by Austrian President Franz Jonas, and restored in 2015, is another central site for commemorations. As Simon Wiesenthal, you contribute to this duty of remembrance, ensuring that the names of the victims of Mauthausen and Upper Austria are never forgotten.