Gloomy, heartbreaking, bitter. Learning about it in history classes is one thing, but actually standing in the location where it happened is another, especially a place where my German Jewish ancestors could have been transported. Mauthausen, located in Austria, was the last concentration camp to be liberated during WWII, and I had the opportunity to tour the devastating facility.

We learn about it in middle school, high school and college. We have frequent reminders of Hitler’s Nazi Regime. Even with all of this constant studying and reminders, it still somehow doesn’t seem real until you actually step foot where it all happened. Entering Mauthausen, to the left, there is a beautiful, green field, and right next to it is overgrown plants and remains dirt roads. Unbelievably, these are the remains of the S.S. futbol team’s home field, with sick barracks right next to it: housing that was used for prisoners who were no longer able to work, and where most of WWII’s prisoners died.

Around the corner, there is a garden of sculptures and other art works dedicated to those of different nationalities and religions that lost their lives in the camp; this area used to be the S.S. housing. Just meters away, there is a large, stone arch with tall double doors, and an observation tower at the stop for the S.S. where the entrance into the actual camp remains. The prisoners’ barracks line up tightly next to each other: forcing each visitor to imagine the hundreds - sometimes thousands - of prisoners that packed in next to each other like weak, sickly, canned sardines.

Across from the barracks were torture chambers where Jews and others were taken to be “showered” (where changing scorching hot and freezing water would eventually kill) or gassed. Before the gas chambers is a room full of all of the known prisoners that passed away at Mauthausen and its satellite camps. The memorial contained thousands of names - names of innocent mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers. I wondered if any of them could have been family. Surely, there was a great chance of some relation.

At the exit of the camp was a smaller stone arch with damage on top where a missing embalm used to be - the swastika and Nazi eagle. On the day of liberation, with the help of U.S. soldiers, the surviving prisoners climbed with all of their might to remove the heavy reminder of the torture they lived through. What a way to end such an intense tour.

I heaved my heart around the facility that day: picturing myself only 70 years ago as to what it would be like to be a Jewish prisoner in a concentration camp. I grieve for every loss, but I am thankful for the preservation of this camp as a constant reminder to strive for peace, so nothing as tragic as the Nazi Regime occurs ever again.