The stories of suffering and death, but also stories of courageous resistance and survival were the themes on Saturday, June 10, at the commemoration of the Nazi victims in the Loibl Pass concentration camp. Because you have to “fight for democracy anew every day”, the state is proclaiming 2025 the “Year of Remembrance Culture”, according to the governor.
The international commemoration event at the former Loibl-Nord concentration camp aims to bring the long-forgotten Mauthausen satellite camp into the cultural memory of Austria and Carinthia. The annual commemoration is organized and carried out by the Carinthia/Koroška Mauthausen Committee. 1,650 prisoners from France, Poland, Yugoslavia, Russia and Germany were interned in the camp. Tunnel dug The prisoners had to dig the 1542 meter long road tunnel. Hard work and poor nutrition made it difficult for them to survive. Anyone who fell ill was murdered with a petrol syringe. “Never forget! This slogan is inextricably linked to the culture of remembrance. Very often today we are confronted both with the task of remembrance and the culture of remembrance and with the reality that includes war and the resurgence of extremism and a terrible decline in democracy. We have to do everything we can to fight for democracy every day,” said Governor Peter Kaiser. The cultural advisory board decided to proclaim 2025 the “Carinthian Year of Remembrance Culture”. “Exactly 80 years ago was the first prisoner transport from Mauthausen am Loibl Arrived,” recalled Manfred Morokutti, Chairman of the Mauthausen Committee Carinthia/Koroška, at the commemoration on Saturday.
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