MAUTHAUSEN 186

Mauthausen Concentration Camp: Located 20 km away from Linz in Austria, the little town of Mauthausen was the point where, in August 1938, Himmler decided to build a new concentration camp in order to supply slave labour for the Wiener Graben stone quarry. The quarry was at the base of the “186 stairs of death”.

Prisoners were forced to carry enormous rocks up the 186 stairs, one behind the other, in a long line. Due to the exhaustion, when one prisoner fell, a shocking domino effect was created. The prisoners who survived to this point were forced to stay in a line at the edge of a cliff known as “The Parachute Jump”. Each of them had the option of being shot or to push the prisoner in front off the cliff.