may 5, 1945 - Liberation of Mauthausen, May 5, 1945

Description:

Mauthausen concentration camp was liberated by the U.S. Army on May 5, 1945. As the Allied forces advanced towards Germany, the SS forces began evacuating prisoners from camps located on the frontlines, in order to prevent the liberation of large numbers of prisoners. Thousands of prisoners were sent to Mauthausen, and the concentration camp became extremely overcrowded. Starvation and typhus epidemics caused large numbers of deaths at Mauthausen. Mauthausen’s gas chamber remained operative until the very last days of the war. The camp authorities carried out the last mass murder in the gas chamber on April 28, 1945. The victims were 33 Upper Austrian Social Democratic and Communist opponents of the regime. On May 3, 1945, the SS abandoned the camp to the custody of a guard unit of 50 Viennese firefighters, who remained on the perimeter of the camp. Members of an “International Committee” formed by the prisoners in the last days of April administered the camp as units of the US Army arrived at the camp and secured the surrounding area on May 5. Further units, including the 11th Armored Division of the Third Army, arrived in the succeeding days.