Day 16 Melk, Austria - A Dark Part of History

Tony's View

 I am having such a wonderful time. Things are so beautiful here and bicycling like this we get to see things completely at a slow pace. We meet interesting people, or should I say I get to watch Joan talk to such interesting people?  We started out today and I got off track a little. and We found ourselves in a middle of a major industrial area. The picture to the right shows the industrial area and a big puff of steam. When we got close, we saw what was happening. The picture to the below left shows this very hot stuff going into this stack where they were trying to cool it off and another major puff went off.  The picture to the bottom left was another cool bridge. It was nice to see because we were back at the Danube, It was tricky getting off the bridge and down to the bike trail. but us adventurers figured it out. 😀 

We were now on the path to Mauthausen Concentration Camp. It was quite the climb up. It was over a 400 foot climb and some of the slopes were 14%. We made it and were glad we did that climb. On August 8, 1938, five months after the annexation of Austria to the German Rieich, the first inmates arrived at Mauthausen. The inmates were put to work for the granite quarries. Most of the people killed here were from illness, being overworked and malnutrition. All told, the SS camp administration registered men, women and children from more than 40 nations. The camp was liberated by the US Army in May 1945. Thousands of prisoners were beaten to death, shot, murder by lethal injection, or froze to death. At least 10,200 inmates were murdered in the last months in the gas chamber.  This was a working camp so the majority were just over worked and starved. The picture (upper right) shown is the "Stairs of Death" was the scene of many deaths, particularly of inmates from punishment detail. Inmate commandos were forced to carry heavy granite blocks up the stairs from the quarry to the camp. Inmates were pushed into the quarry to their death over the "Parachute Jump".  The other two pictures above are of Memorials of different nations. There were many memorials. 

 
The gate to the left was the only entrance to the detention camp where the concentration camp inmates lived. It was heavily guarded.  

 The picture to the left is a picture of when the Americans showed up in their tanks to liberate the camp. 1000's were so ill, they died even after the Americans showed up. When we were going through the museum and seeing pictures of both the German guards and the inmates, it put reality to it and made you sick in the stomach. It is amazing that something like this could happen. The picture below is where newly arrived inmates had to line up at the "Wailing Wall", where they often experienced mistreatment for the first time at the hands of the SS. They would then after hours of abuse, send them down these stairs to the below right to be shaved completely with cuts, then showered and given clothes that didn't fit. They said they didn't even recognize each other afterwards.

The barracks were designed to accommodate 300 inmates. Some would house over 2000 inmates. It was eerie walking through them knowing what happened there. In front of the barracks, the inmates were required to muster in the roll-call area three times a day. This could go on for hours, just to show their authority. The picture to the right is the "Ash Dump" and was outside the camp perimeter. This is where the ashes from the crematoriums were dumped.

 The pictures on both sides is the one of the three crematoriums that survived. This is where the inmates were incinerated. They had cooling rooms for all the bodies in the previous rooms. They couldn't keep up. In the end they just threw the bodies in a pile outside the area. When the Americans got there, they buried thousands of people and there is a large graveyard there. There is so much more to tell you. We spent over 2 hours there. It is something to experience, but it does make you sick to your stomach that something like this could happen.

When we made it up to Mauthausen, there were only 2 other bicycles in the bicycle rack. As you can see, when we left there were many bicycles up there. Many had electric assist. The picture to the right are people we met from Australia. We watched them arrive right after them finished the big climb to Mauthausen. They are going to Vienna and heading back to Australia. They flew into Zurich with their tandem, and took a taxi to the beginning of the Danube. Not as adventurous as us, or cheap, whatever. They go around 25 miles per day verses our 60 miles. They were amazed when we said 67 miles today. One interesting thing they said was, "did you guys notice there were no signs or anything when you left Germany and entered Austria?" We thought exactly the same thing. We weren't sure whether we were in Germany or Austria.


After leaving Mauthausen, we had 55 miles to go to get to Melk. We got on some nice paths and ran into a big fish. We had to stop for Bud. Instead of us eating the fish, the fish was eating me. Below is just another cool castle that we saw. We didn't take pictures of all of them, just a few. All along the Danube you see ones that are kept up and many that are now just ruins. 

 Here you see Joan really studying the map. She must be losing confidence in my mapping. I know I have been questioning it quite a bit. We have been off my plans more than I would have hoped. We are making it there, just adding more miles.

 We have seen many soccer fields throughout this trip and this is the first time we have seen anyone on one. Therefore, we had to stop and take a picture. It could be because we go through during the day or everyone is on Holiday now. Pictured below, Joan stayed on the other side of a bridge because it looked so cool to take my picture. We ate lunch in the town in the background. The picture to the below right shows a typical small town we go through. We go through so many of them and it is such a way of culture here.

 We see many cruise liners and I have to get a picture every so often. This one really has the boat shape in the front. We must see at least 8 a day and I know we miss some. The picture to the right is of of two automatic mowers that are mowing the soccer pitch. Must be the way they keep all of them over here so well groomed, like golf courses.

One last picture of the day. I know many of you are not as impressed with bridge pictures as I am, but you got to admit, this is a cool way to get the bicycle path up to the bridge crossing the Danube. This was an amazing day filled with many miles and adventures and lets not forget the dark part of history.

Joan's Extras

We definitely put on the miles today, but it worked out that with this day is in the middle of our trip, my legs are much better prepared for those extra hilly miles. We picked up a few extra miles today doing some turnarounds, or rather quite a few turnarounds. At one point, we came to a crossroad near a corn field. We could go left, straight or right. We did all three! Even better than that, Tony decided to go back to the road that we turned off from, which happened to be the direction of most of the other riders. We just wave at the riders that we pass, and then smile and wave some more as we pass them again because we did our little backtracking thing. No matter how off track we get though or how we have to change our route because of unexpected detours, Tony gets us there with his excellent GPS map reading skills. He still loves to do the civil engineering / map thing, you know.

I get to share two nice scenic photos. The first one on the left is our view during lunch in Grein, Austria. We ate upstairs on a shaded terrace with a great breeze.

The next one is another distant castle photo that Tony liked along our ride today.

One blip happened today. Tony's diabetes sensor for his continuous blood glucose monitor went haywire. He spent half of the day without it. When we arrived at our place in Emmersdorf (which such a cute small town), he was able to get it to reconnect. Funny, the last time that happened was on our last blogged bike trip. You can read older blogs if you want to see how he solved that one.

Dinner tonight was here in Emmersdorf, just down the winding, cobblestone road. Tony got his large beer, and I went all out and tried a apricot liquor home made by the owner. Of course, I topped it off with some apple strudel.😍