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From September 1944, prisoners evacuated from the Natzweiler main camp began to arrive in Melk and, from January 1945, prisoners from Auschwitz. According to historian Hans Maršálek, the camp reached its maximum capacity on January 30, 1945, with 10,352 prisoners.
In July 1944 there was an Allied air raid on the town of Melk, which also inflicted heavy damage on the concentration camp grounds. More than 220 prisoners and 22 Luftwaffe soldiers deployed as guards were killed in a raid by the US 15th Air Force on 8 July.
Melk was a (subcamp of Mauthausen located approximately 100 km to the east of Linz (Austria). It was established January 11, 1944. Its main purpose was to provide forced labor for the different tunneling projects in the surrounding hills. The hills consisted of fine sand and quartz.
Melk (Austria) (sub-camp of Mauthausen) by Mark Vadasz. Location: Aprox. 100 km to the east of Linz (Austria). Established: January 11, 1944. Liberated: May 5, 1945. Estimated number of victims: aprox. 10,000 (not counting the unknown number which perished in the tunnels). Unfortunately little is known of the Melk sub-camp. Its main purpose was ...
- Mauthausen
- Melk
- Heavy Forced Labour
- Evacuation
Melk camp was one of the sub-camps of Mauthausen concentration camp. Mauthausen had been established in 1938 as a camp for male prisoners. They had to perform extremely hard forced labour in the area's stone quarries. The camp was run by camp commander and ss-StandartenführerFranz Ziereis (1905-1945). Mauthausen was a camp of the toughest category....
Melk camp was established as a concentration camp for male prisoners on 21 April 1944. Melk was located in a former barracks, perched on the south-western edge of the town of Melk on the banks of the Danube. The camp commander was Julius Ludolph (1893-1947). The camp held an average of seven thousand prisoners of various nationalities. There were a...
It was mainly the extremely hard forced labour to which many prisoners succumbed. In three shifts, the prisoners worked day and night drilling, excavating and shoring up the tunnel corridors, draining (quartz) sand, manufacturing the beams needed to shore up the tunnels, loading and unloading building materials and other construction work in the hu...
In early April 1945, as the Soviet army drew ever closer and was about to capture Vienna, Melk camp was evacuated in great haste. On 11 April 1945, the sick from the infirmary and the young men from the camp were sent back to Mauthausen by train. Peter van Pels was also among them. On 5 May 1945, a reconnaissance unit of the US Third Army entered M...
During World War II, a subcamp of Mauthausen concentration camp was located here. Today the former crematorium is a museum while the rest of the camp was part of what is now the Birago barracks of the Austrian Army.
Camp Melk was a satellite camp of Mauthausen concentration camp and existed from 21 April 1944 to April 1945. At least 14,390 people heve been imprisoned in the camp. Of these, about 5000 were murdered. The American airforce bombed the camp on 8 July 1944, which costed the lives of 400 inmates.
