A short personal comment would be advantageous.

Thanks a lot for your support!
Christoph Seydl
 

Thanks for your initiative. I just read about it on the internet.

St. Valentin is place of beautiful childhood memories. My godmother, Mrs. Erna Angrüner, lived there together with her family in the Hauptstraße; there was a gorgeous large garden and a cosy house, where I – born in 1954 – felt always very good.

When I visited my aunt again in the early 90's after a long time, she was already old and critically ill. I sat on her bed and had a chat about archaeology and her work to document field names in the surrounding area of St. Valentin. Suddenly, we descended to the NS [national socialism] time, the concentration camp Mauthausen and the fact that trains with the deportees stood in the train station of St. Valentin. It was very hot, told aunt Erna, and the poor people in the trains were "very thirsty and begged for water", but "one was not allowed to give anything." She mentioned also that "everybody knew what happens in Mauthausen", but "one was not allowed to know anything."

I was very shocked to hear these words out of the mouth of my dear godmother. Never before, I had had the thought to associate the concentration camp with the beautiful city of St. Valentin or even with aunt Erna. However, in this moment I recognised that St. Valentin with the beautiful garden and the charming little house had a horrible bloody past. Since that I must think of the many people who had to suffer so horribly on this piece of soil, whenever I pass though St. Valentin by train.

My godmother died soon after our talk. It was still a concern to her to talk about her memories. This talk was very important to her and to me because it helped both of us to position us better in the world – to live with the truth – she as contemporary witness and I as a representative of the next generation.

The remains of the "Concentration Camp Nibelungenwerke" is a very, very important part of St. Valentin's history. It is unworthy and disgusting to present the municipality solely as location for wedding couples. Such a bloodstained soil deserves special attention in order to give consideration to the complexity of its importance, for still living contemporary witnesses, their children and grandchildren. It is very important to *have the possibility to *go to such a place in order to feel the dolor and shame, which – let's be afraid of it – will always agonise us.

For sure, it would be in the sense of my aunt Erna, who never mentioned the field name "Concentration Camp Nibelungenwerk" to preserve the remains of this meaningful and terribly sad place and to benignly take care of it.

Hushing-up is an Austrian national disease. We do not reconsider doing something better or even to learn from our mistakes. Contrary, even 60 years afterwards, it is forged to make a truth of the lie and to regard the lie as history. Alone the statements of the major confirm the necessarity of such a memorial place. Corporate groups that destroy such an important part of Austria's history because of financial interests should be intensively boycotted so that they bankrupt.

The remains of the camp must be pre as a memorial to those who were killed there, and as a warning to future generations as to how fragile are the institutions of democracy.

I have read the page about the former concentration camp and found it interessting. Also I have grown up in St. Valentin, and therefore, I know how especially this chapter of the "city's history" is pretended never happened.

Not only the immediate surroundings and the Nibelungenwerk are affected by this unpleasant history - no, if this concentration camp had not exxiisted, whole parts of the city would not exist.

The history of Langenhart and Herzograd [both parts of St. Valentin] is inseperably bound up with the history of the concentration camp and the Nibelungenwerk - not only subterraneanly.

I wish that projects about this topic are done at the schools becuase even if one cannot change the past - what has happened has happened - but the concetration camp should continue to exist as a memorial for future generations.

Kind regards
M.O.

(Translated from German into English)

I'm for preserving old immovables and moveables on principle. Even if this is associated with horrible memories. This object would not be worthy of being preserved (and being seen) just as a memorial, but it would also make up something financially (tourism) for the municipality.

Much sucess with your efforts wished by
                Rudolf Pautscheck

(Translated from German into English)

My name is Gratiana Pol. I study international business administration in the 7th semester, and I am head of the international department of the students union at the Johannes Kepler University Linz.

I think that the tracks of the concentration camp Nibelungenwerk may not be destroyed at all. A while ago, I went round the concentration camp Mauthausen and was very marked by the impressions which I got there . It was an experience which has changed a part of me...

Therefore, I think that everyone of us should get the possibility to get to know the dark aspects of the past in order to draw conclsussions. However, that can only be done if such memorials as the concentration camp Nibelungenwerk are conserved and accessible to all. Eliminating them - even partly - would mean that one denies the past and takes away the possibility to outgrow the mistakes of the past from following generations.

Gratiana Pol

(Translated from German into English)

I support the action group for the conservation of and the free access to the concentration camp Nibelungwerk. In my opionion, it is a shame for the city of Saint Valentin, if such a historically important place should be destroyed.

Markus Landerer

(Translated from German into English)

It is important that places and events do not fall into oblivion - and especially that the humans (and their history) who have been murdered there and have been forced to work are not forgotten.

It is important to know that many success stories of firms would not exist without the forced labourers and concentration camp internees.
Just these forced labourers and internees as well as their relatives deserve at least a memorial.
A memorial so that such a cruel contempt for human beings, exploitation and destruction of people is clearly and emphatically condemned and not being forgotten.
A memorial which contributes to prevent that this horror happens again.
A memorial which gives back the identity and the history to the murdered humans - hence their place.

Helga Ratzenböck

(Translated from German into English)

I was born in Saint Valentin in 1964 and the area of the former concentration camp is highly linked with my childhood.

The area of the former concentration camp was a »play ground« to me. A macabre fact is that we played »2nd World War« there.

No-one of the grown-ups had told us what was the matter with the concentration camp, what really happened there and that humans (»no criminals«) have been murdered there.

All who have grown up in Saint Valentin know where the former concentration camp is. This has not changed, and even today least of the people know what really happened there.

The family history of almost every Saint Valentian is somehow related to the Nibelungen Works.
Because of money for the »sold« property or because of relatives who have worked at the works, because of growing-up in a so-called »Hitler building« (with the white labeling showing where the air-raid shelter was), because of the existence of air-raid shelters surrounded by housing estate, or because of being friend with people who have grown up in the shacks.

Saint Valentin was a small village before 1938 and the number of inhabitants has multiplied because of the »Ni-Werk« [Nibelungen Works], also because of forced labourers.

The forced labourers were forced to work under tremendous conditions and were murdered. There was no help, no justice and seldom rescue for them.

Not even the memory on their existence, their names, their history and suffering have remained in Saint Valentin. That is inhuman ignorance and repeated annihilation. Therefore, it would be the time to put a preservation order on the former concentration camp as well as on parts of the former works premises.

Martin Seydl