(7 May 1995) English/Nat
Survivors of the Nazi genocide against the Jews returned on Sunday to Mauthausen death camp in Austria.
Among them Simon Wiesenthal, who has spent the last half century hunting down Nazi war criminals.
In May 1945 Mauthausen became the last concentration camp to be liberated in Europe.
The survivors were set free by American troops - who also returned to Mauthausen on Sunday.
Once united in suffering, today drawn back together to commemorate the liberation of the camp where so many thousands of prisoners perished at the hands of Hitler's men.
From every corner of Europe they returned - from France, Belgium, Hungary, Italy, - Poles, Czechs, Russians and Spaniards,
Each with their own grim memories of the camp of death.
SOUNDBITE:
Well it was hell and I was so glad to be free again. But when I come back here I get a feeling of what it was like at the time and you feel a bit, I don't know what to say.
SUPERCAPTION Pierre Weydert, French Camp survivor.
SOUNDBITE:
Bread, that was only a dream. We get some soup, be I cannot tell you which kind of soup, you know.
SUPERCAPTION: Erno Lazarovits Hungarian Camp survivor.
SOUNDBITE:
(Reporter's question) Can you forgive?
Maybe forgive, but not forget.
SUPERCAPTION: Eva Stichova Czech Camp survivor.
The S-S dubbed Mauthausen Austria's mother camp.
More than 110-thousand people died within its walls and at surrounding smaller camps.
Some were gassed, shot hanged or beaten, but mostly they were worked to death by the Nazis.
Thousands lost their lives here in Mauthausen's quarry.
12 hours a day prisoners weakened by disease and hunger hauled fifty pounds rocks up these steps - known as the death steps.
On Sunday those that some how survived retraced those steps.
Wreaths from every nation that lost citizens were laid at the Mauthausen sarcophagus - a memorial dedicated to the victims of the concentration camp.
One of it's most famous survivors was back on Sunday. Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, seen here standing next to the U-S Ambassador to Austria Swanee Hunt. Next to Hunt is Colonel Richard Seibel, the American soldier who freed Wiesenthal.
SOUNDBITE:
We hear people 'They are coming, they are coming' and we know they mean the Americans. And those people were on all fours. You understand, we were praying we saw the tank. And many of these people that were with me, was coming, you know, and then they die at that moment. Or maybe a few moments more. I don't know if they knew if they knew they are liberated and if they knew that Nazis must collapse.
SUPERCAPTION: Simon Wiesenthal Nazi Hunter and Camp Survivor.
There was one slightly jarring note at the ceremony.
Two former U-S soldiers both claimed to be the first to liberate Mauthausen - not Colonel Seibel. The U-S Ambassador calmed them down and led them away.
SOUNDBITE:
I was actually dumbfounded to see the condition of this camp and the bodies lying around to be buried. I couldn't believe because in all of my life I had never seen or heard anything like that. It was, it was shocking.
SUPERCAPTION: Colonel Seibel
But their outburst didn't detract from the sombre and dignified ceremony to remember the many thousands who lost their lives.
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