Austria, Mauthausen/Gusen Concentration Camp Death Record Books , 1938-1945

Historical background:

Mauthausen, located 20 km from Linz, Austria, was set up in 1938, after the "Anschluss of Austria." On August 8, 1938 prisoners from Dachau were transferred to the "Wiener Graben" quarry to build the Mauthausen concentration camp. It became the central camp for Austria, from which forty-nine permanent sub-camps were administered. One of the major subcamps was Gusen.

Initially German and Austrian criminals, "asocials," political prisoners, homosexuals, and Jehovah's Witnesses were sent there. Later Poles, Spanish republican refugees transferred by Vichy France, Soviet and other POWs, as well as Jews, were sent there. For example, between 1942 and 1944, political prisoners from France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Greece, Albania, Poland, the Soviet Union, Italy, Hungary, and Germany, and thousands of unregistered Soviet POWs were sent to Mauthausen. And in 1945, more than 20,000 prisoners from other concentration camps in countries given up by the Nazis were transferred to Mauthausen.

Nearly 68,000 prisoners were held in Gusen before liberation on May 5, 1945. While not a death camp in the strict sense of that term, conditions were so bad that a majority of the prisoners died there.

About the Database:

The database includes over 38,000 names of prisoners that were imprisoned and died at Mauthausen and/or other nearby sub-camps. It is not a complete list, since several thousand prisoners, particularly Russian prisoners of war, were never entered into the records, but simply murdered. There were relatively few Jewish prisoners in Mauthausen in the early years, but near the end of WWII this changed and thousands of Jewish forced laborers, particularly Hungarian, were sent to Gusen. Information provided about individuals includes:

• Prisoner number


• Nationality


• Reason for Arrest


• "Night and Fog" decrees*


• Surname


• Other Surnames


• Given Name


• Birth date


• Occupation


• Death date


• Cause of death


• Place of death


• Transfers


• Arrival date


• Source


• Comments

*Prisoners who were under the "nacht und nebel" decrees (night and fog), were said to have disappeared mysteriously and were not allowed outside contacts nor was their location disclosed to relatives or friends.