Austria Acknowledges Guilt in Ceremonies at Mauthausen

Austrian Chancellor Franz Vranitzky this week acknowledged his country’s complicity in the Nazi Final Solution and decried those who belittle the Holocaust.

The chancellor also struck a strong blow against right-wing extremism in remarks at a ceremony making the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the Mauthausen death camp.

The ceremonies took place as Austria was also commemorating the restoration of Austrian democracy a half-century ago.

More than 20,000 people from 40 countries gathered for the Mauthausen ceremony Sunday at the site of what was the largest concentration camp on Austrian soil.

Among them was Col. Richard Seibel, who, as commander of the 11th Armored Division of the U.S. Army, was the first to enter Mauthausen on May 5, 1945.

“I am not here for myself, but for those many soldiers who were here helping me in this hell,” the 86-year-old veteran said. Choking back tears, he added: “I want to salute the survivors. They have surmounted evil and insanity — you are the heroes here.”

Of the 200,000 people detained at Mauthausen and in various subcamps between 1938 and 1945 throughout the province of Upper Austria, more than half were killed.

Many died working as slave laborers in Mauthausen’s infamous quarry. Others were shot or killed in the camp’s gas chambers.

Memories of the liberation and warnings for the future were combined in an address by renowned Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal, a former prisoner of the camp who was liberated there after surviving 12 other camps.

During Sunday’s ceremonies, each religious group held its own commemorative services. While Roman Catholics gathered to remember the priests and other clergy imprisoned and killed at Mauthausen, Jews chanted the “El Male Rachamim” memorial prayer and “Hatikvah,” the Israeli national anthem.

Vranitzky was joined by all 10 of the Social Democratic ministers of his Cabinet and by one minister of his Christian Conservative coalition partner.

In his keynote address, the chancellor made it clear that Austrians had a remarkable share in the “ice-cold planning and executing of the infamous Final Solution.”

Stressing the importance of memory, Vranitzky said, “We will not tolerate anybody who does not accept the historical truth and tries to belittle the horrible mass murder in this laboratory of violence.”

And referring to the recent electoral success of Jorg Haider’s right-wing extremist Freedom Party, the chancellor called upon Austrian youth not to believe in “any new fuhrer who incites people to hate each other.”

Austria’s Nazi past was also recalled during a series of recent ceremonies making the 50th anniversary of the restoration of democratic rule in the country after the defeat of the Third Reich.

On April 27, 1945, Austria’s Second Republic was established after seven years of Nazi domination.

The event was commemorated at a joint session of both chambers of the Austrian Parliament, during which Austrian President Thomas Klestil and the president of Parliament, Heinz Fischer, delivered addresses sharply critical of Austria’s close ties to Hitler’s Germany.

The speakers also devoted some of their remarks to praising the democratic achievements of the Austrian state during the past 50 years.

Among the invited guests were 15 former Jewish citizens who were forced to leave Vienna after Hitler’s annexation of Austria.

The Jewish guests — who came from Israel, the United States, Denmark, England, Sweden, South Africa and Argentina — stayed for one week and took part in all the official celebrations, including the parliamentary session, where they were greeted with applause when Fischer pointed out their presence in the audience.

At one ceremony, Klestil said it had been a mistake that “we did not call these citizens back to their home immediately after the war.”