Even today the concentration camp is not scheduled as a momunement to protect.
Magna Austria uses a truck test track directly beside the former concentration
camp, which was established 1978 by Steyr-Daimler-Puch.Now, the new owner of the area Magna Austria plans build set a passenger car test track in this forest. Even the area of the concentration camp are to be converted into development land for special use.
Dr. Peter Reif from the Engineering Center Steyr (ECS), subsidiary of Magna International Inc., said that the area of the concentration camp will remain untouched. However, he does not want to confirm this in writing - not once opposite journalits, since his word should be enough. The former concentration camp Nibelungenwerk is still fully and freely accessible. If this will also remain so in the future is uncertain.
Concerning the concentration camp, Mayor Manfred Miessner meant shortly and concisely in a local council meeting: »We won't need two memorial places.« At present a small commemorative plaque stands outside of the works' area on municipality property.
This reminding board was established in laborious work by the pupils of a secondary modern school. However this memorial is not replacement for the remains of the concentration camp, especially because this memorial is at the wrong place.
Once also a commemorative plaque was before the Nibelungenwerk's main gate. This »annoying« memory to the past of the works was shifted later, where hardly anybody gets sight of it - in the very last corner of the cemetery in Saint Valentin.
How the memory of the national socialism stands at in the municipality politics, illustrates following statement of the mayor concerning a memorial at the works premises: »At the moment, the time is everything else but appropriate, we are already negotiating about the enlargement of the ASK practice ground [ASK=Working Group on Sport and Body Culture] on SDP's property [SDP=Steyr-Daimler-Puch], even there we are stuck.«
Confronted with his former statement, Mayor Manfred Miessner omitted to deliver a statement until today. The public relations department of the municipal office communicated only that one did not want to go into such unobjective questions in connection with the planned test track.
The public relation department of the local authority mentioned: »There is nothing left of the concentration camp itself what could be protected. [...] to what extent air-raid shelter facilities of the Nazis should be considered to be worth to preserve is questionable.« Though, this can be seen from another perspective. When the Allies relieved Austria from Nationalsocialist's reign of terror, the Nazis did everything in their power to cover up all traces of their atrocious deeds. The former concentration camp can serve as an authentic memorial for all following generations. Therefore, it is necessary to preserve it and to keep it freely accessible. The mistakes of the past should never be repeated.
