The Safeguarding Sites Project aims to visit five sites over the course of five years to gain insight on best practice for site management and preservation of sites of the Holocaust and genocide of the Roma. This insight informs its Charter for Best Practice. In 2019, the group visited Alderney in the Channel Islands, and now, after a year of delay due to the pandemic, at the beginning of August, the second expert visit was able to take place in Austria.
The purpose of our trip to the sites of Mauthausen, Gusen and Gunskirchen was twofold: first, to observe examples of good practice and to hear about and see the challenges that the sites face today; and second, to improve the draft Safeguarding Sites Charter for Best Practice, which the team is currently refining.
The three camps we visited are very different from one another and thus offer invaluable insight into the realities of modern-day site preservation. Mauthausen was built inside a purpose-built fortress which still exists today and comprises many original camp buildings and structures. It is a few kilometers away from the village of Mauthausen.
The modern village of Gusen, on the other hand, was built on the footprint of the camp destroyed in 1945. While several original buildings survive, they are – somewhat incredibly to an outsider – used as private residences today.
The Gunskirchen camp operated for only three weeks from within a forest before being liberated by US forces. Several thousand prisoners from Mauthausen were taken there in the spring of 1945. All that survives today are the bases of some concrete hut platforms, and a scatter of textiles and artifacts on the forest floor.
Many of these objects have been collected by an archaeological team led by Professor Claudia Theune, who joined our expert visit. Professor Theune has also excavated at Mauthausen and Gusen and was an invaluable member of the team in her role as academic advisor.
