Mauthausen worthwhile?
 

I have searched and found a few posts here on Mauthausen but not enough to convince me if this side trip is worthwhile in a tight schedule. It is sounding like if traveling between Vienna and Salzburg I would have a stop in Linz, if so, how much more time would it take to get to the camp and how long to see it? Also is it better as a tour or just on your own? Thanks!

For some reason this post is upsetting me. I know that you don't mean anything wrong by it but this post is way too casual-- please remember that this isn't a day trip to a castle or a cute village.

Relax Dee, If you where to go out and do a search on Dachau you would find that others thought this camp had been sanitized to the point that it didn't have the impact. If I was interested in a "Disnyesque" sort of day I would not even be considering it.

Debbie, while I know what you're getting at here, trust me that a visit to Dachau is in *no* way "Disneyesque." Yes, there's not much left of the camp itself, so a great deal has been reconstructed. But on my visit to Dachau in 1999, simply walking those grounds left me shaken in a way nothing ever has before or since. Looking at the gate and its "Arbeit Macht Frei" message left ice water in my veins even though it was a hot September day and I was sweating in black jeans. <BR> <BR>I literally, physically could not utter a word during our entire walk around the grounds; it was as if somebody had a hold on my throat. <BR> <BR>No matter how much it may have been "cleaned up," Dachau was a house of death, and I don't think you can set foot inside its gates without feeling that in your gut. It is not possible to "Disneyfy" such a place. I used to read in books about "the blood of the dead crying out from the ground" in places like these, but I never quite understood what was meant except in an abstract way. Walking around Dachau that day, I *heard* those voices.

I guess the question you would need to answer first is: "Do I want to go to Mauthausen?" Second question may be "Why?" <BR> <BR>Depending on your background, any concentration camp may (or may not) be an extremely powerful experience. As someone says in the movie 8mm, "There are things you'll see that you can not unsee" <BR> <BR>Aside from that, I've been to Mauthausen and Dachau. I have to say that Mauthausen was (as an experience) much more powerful than Dachau. <BR> <BR>As for timings, I would allow around 1:30 to see the camp. A tour is definitely better. <BR> <BR>Is it worth it? That's a good question, and depends on how you answered the question "why would I want to go?"

Actually I think the question was how easy/hard is it to get to, and is it practical to try to squeeze it in to very busy schedule. <BR> <BR>I wish I could tell you if it was worth it, when I tried to go I never made it because the connections were difficult, at least for me! I was using a Rick Steve's guide book and found the instructions to be misleading or at least difficult for this brain to understand. So my advice would be to either make it a priority and make a day of it or skip it. <BR> <BR>If you go on your own, go early in the morning. I tried to fit it in at the end of the day and ran out of time. I think I would have neded up with 10 minutes there or something.

The shallowness of a few of these replies is astounding. Mauthausen is a place for reflection, not a 'must do'.

For those who do not know, Mauthausen was one of the Nazis' most infamous death camps. Thousands were worked to death in a stone quarry adjoining this place. I have seen Dachau, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and a few others. For sheer brutality, Mauthausen took the prize. It is a place of pilgrimage. Anything less would trivilalize this experience.