Memorial honours 2,848 victims of Nazi killings at Mauer-Öhling

A memorial at the former psychiatric hospital in Mauer-Öhling now bears 2,848 names of people killed there or sent to killing centres under the Nazi regime, ORF reports.

The memorial occupies a meadow beside the cemetery of Mauer hospital. The remains of several hundred patients killed in the final phase of the Second World War lie beneath the ground, which had long been overgrown.

Artist and cultural historian Azra Akšamija designed the memorial, which is bounded by two walls made from different materials. She described them as “walls of silence” representing a story that had not yet been told.

Metal plaques bearing the victims’ names are attached to one wall. Akšamija said they evoke both the tags attached to dead people’s toes and the luggage labels of deportees. Traffic on the nearby main road makes the plaques vibrate and ring, she said, inviting visitors to reflect on what happened.

Professional efforts to investigate the crimes began only in the mid-2010s. A pavilion at Mauer hospital was also dedicated to the subject as part of the state exhibition “When the World Is Upside Down” and will remain a place for learning after the exhibition.

Hospital medical director Christian Korbel said he had pushed for the work despite resistance. He said it was important to consider how to recognise when the ideology of the past returns “in other colours, under other names and disguises.”

Historian Stephan Roth, speaking at the memorial’s opening, recalled the fate of Maria Bauer, a child from the region who was among the victims. He said relatives now had a place to visit “as they would a gravestone.”

Lower Austria’s governor, Johanna Mikl-Leitner, said remembrance must continue and cannot be considered a task that is ever complete.