Linz

This morning our group has a tour of the historic city center of Linz and a tour of Mauthausen concentration camp in the afternoon.

It rained lightly much of the morning. Great weather for the Common Merganser outside our cabin when we woke up.

We started our historic Linz city center walking tour near the balcony Hitler used when he announced that Germany was annexing Austria in 1938 in Linz.

Hitler had fond memories of his childhood in Linz and had great plans for Linz.

During a stopover in Linz, Mozart wrote his Symphony No. 36 (Linz Symphony) in this building.

There is a small memorial to the victims from Linz that were sent to Mauthausen.

The Linz Cathedral was built 1880s, largest in Austria by area, the tower is 2 meters shorter than the Vienna cathedral to appease the bishop in Vienna.

Walking around the town, we saw Linzer Torte, a crumbly pastry crust often made with nuts and filled with jam and Dirndl dresses in the shop windows.

We walked up to the castle, it has nice overview of the city.

We passed by the secondary school building that Christian Doppler studied at on the way down.

We had lunch on the ship.

In the afternoon we visited the Mauthausen concentration camp. Daniel was our guide. He talked about how the SS systematically stripped away the humanity of the prisoners. The camp had a quarry, the stone walls of the camp were quarried and built by the prisoners. The thought was the exhausted prisoners were easier to control.

Mauthausen treated the prisoners very cruelly, as expendable labor. The quarry next to the camp had 186 steps and the prisoners had to carry the stones weighing up to 50Kg up the steps. Dropping a stone could get a prisoner shot. Prisoners were lined up along the top edge of the quarry and given a choice to either be shot or push the prisoner next to them off the cliff. It is estimated that of the 190,000 people who were imprisoned there, fully half lost their lives.

Many countries have built memorials to their prisoners imprisoned at Mauthausen. This is the Hungarian memorial.

Mauthausen did have gas chambers and a crematorium that were used.

There was a “hospital” staffed by prisoners with medical training, but no supplies. There is a graveyard in that portion of the complex now.

On the bus ride back to the ship, our program director, Ivor, talked about how he had been a local guide in Croatia starting out talking about his city’s devastation in the war breaking up Yugoslavia. His family hid in the basement of their house and didn’t go to the hospital basement that many people fled to that was bombed.

We went on top of the boat after the Captain’s Welcome dinner to look at buildings lit up at night. The Lentos Art Museum and the Ars Electronica Museum are right by our dock.