Polish Killing & Atrocity Centers

Most will not immediately identify "Melk" in Austria as a Killing Center but it was one of the mainstay camps in the Mauthausen System. Melk, Mauthausen, Ebensee,Guzen and the Castle Hartheim were linked in one of the most monstrous and cruel of systems: deaths, killings and slavery occurred at Melk and Mauthausen, the mentally ill, once housed at Hartheim were 'euthanized' followed by prisoner shootings and many cremations took place at Ebensee. One of the primary purposes of Melk was slave labor in the quarries, although the mining of sand and quartz was forefront on dangerous slopes. ²The brutal treatment of Mauthausen carried over to Melk: the first 500 prisoners were from there.

Deaths took place on a regular basis, estimates of 10,000 of the 14,000 perished there from exhaustion, malnutrition, starvation, disease, gassings and phenol injections to the heart (noted in a 1960s war crime trial) No one nationality predominated and toward the end of the war as prisoners from killing centers were again deported or marched to other camps, Melk became a main destination. Established in 1944, Melk had the distinction of a 'hidden ' gas chamber in which double tiled walls muted death cries. The Commandant, Obersturmbannfuhrer Ludolf was hung after a war crimes trial in 1947. Liberation came on May 5,1945, 3.5 months after Auschwitz by the Red Army. Plans to turn Melk into a full-fledged killing center fell short, fortunately for the death toll already reached 5/7.