The Russian and Belarusian ambassadors have been asked not to participate in the commemoration scheduled for May 15 of the liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, we learned on Tuesday April 19 from the organizing committee.
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"
A participation of the two countries would be incompatible with the Mauthausen oath of the surviving prisoners and their wish for peace and freedom
", justified in the local press its president, Willi Mernyi.
An email was personally sent to the two representatives, confirmed a spokeswoman contacted by AFP.
Condemnation of the Russian invasion
"
The enormous sacrifices made by the Soviet Union as a member of the Allies in the fight against National Socialism and in the liberation of many camps will never be forgotten
," the Austrian, international and memorial committees wrote in a statement. Mauthausen, also referring to "
the unimaginable suffering inflicted on Soviet prisoners
".
But, they add, "
we condemn in the strongest terms
" the Russian invasion of Ukraine, carried out with the support of Belarus, and "
demand an immediate end to the war
".
If the ambassadors are not welcome, the associations, the survivors and their families have been invited to the ceremony.
Economic function of the camp
Opened in August 1938 by the SS, five months after the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany, the camp was intended for "
incorrigible political enemies
" of the Nazi order.
On the site and its 49 annexes, it received many prisoners of war, in particular Soviet and Polish, but also, in smaller numbers, resistance fighters, common law prisoners, homosexuals and Jews.
The camp also had an economic function which grew with the war years.
The detainees were forced to work in the surrounding granite quarries in atrocious conditions.
From 1942 they were assigned to the arms industry.
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Mauthausen was liberated in May 1945 by American troops.
A total of 200,000 people went there, nearly half of whom died, victims of hunger, disease, gassed or executed.