In a letter on the 77th anniversary of the liberation of the Mauthausen and Gusen camps, Deputy Minister of Culture and National Heritage, Jarosław Sellin, wrote that the memory of Gusen is of particular importance to Poland due to the number of Polish prisoners and victims and because it was the place of extermination of the Polish intelligentsia and the population of Warsaw deported after the Warsaw Uprising. “It is our duty to remember their history”, he wrote.

“Concentration camps are one of the darkest chapters in the history of Europe, filled with brutality and contempt for other people, which should never take place. Let the memory of what happened in Gusen and Mauthausen be a warning to all of us to eliminate atrocities forever”, the deputy head of the Ministry of Culture appealed in his letter

He added that the purchase by the Austrian authorities of the remains of the camp in Gusen, which had been decaying so far, and the commencement of work on the shape of the memorial site is an important step to ensure that the ordeal of thousands of prisoners of the Gusen concentration camp would not be forgotten.

“This gives hope that the surviving Gusen prisoners, so few among us, will live to see the ceremonial opening of this commemoration.

The Mauthausen camp and its sub-camps played a key role in destroying Polish social elites as well as people of science and culture – the Polish intelligentsia. In 1940, almost 100% of Gusen prisoners were Poles. Teachers, priests, doctors, officials, architects, engineers, journalists, writers and poets, musicians and composers, social and political activists, university professors and students, artists and lawyers were imprisoned there. The camp complex was liberated on May 5, 1945.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński