Ebensee Concentration Camp - Post-war Commemoration

Post-war Commemoration

In the immediate aftermath of liberation, former Polish inmates erected a stark concrete monument on the mass graves of their fellow prisoners who did not survive. In the first decades after the war, however, no other commemoration efforts were undertaken. To the contrary, the site of the concentration camp was designated for development as a residential area; many of the remaining camp structures except for its gate were demolished. Moreover, during the 1960s a former SS officer for some time became mayor of Ebensee, without his Nazi past arousing much attention.

However, a drastically changed attitude followed in the wake of the 1988 election of Kurt Waldheim as President of Austria and the revelations of his Nazi career. Ebensee, like many other locations in Austria, was touched by the controversy and the need to face Austria's past.

In Ebensee there was a determination to commemorate the events and preserve what camp remnants were still there. The tunnels, which had been dug by the slave labourers, remained intact but they were neglected and their existence largely unknown.

In 1997 Mayor Herwart Loidl presided over the placing of memorial plaques in the tunnels, commemorating the severe hardships of the slave workers who built them, and to those who had died there. Access to the underground chambers was created through the stairs known as "Lowengang" (English: Lions' Walk). The tunnels since opening have seen increasing number of visitors, from abroad as well as Austrian students who are learning about their nation's past.

Today, a former school house has been turned into the Zeitgeschichte Museum und KZ-Gedenkstätte Ebensee, which holds regular lectures and readings, publishes a journal about the war period, and hosts an annual commemoration attended by surviving former inmates from different countries. It exhibits photographs, testimonies and relics from the camp.