Mauthausen, Austria. In the northernmost sector of the camp’s “guarded area,” a tent city was built where typhus, malnutrition, and disease claimed hundreds of victims (many buried in mass graves, as the crematoria were no longer capable of disposing of the corpses). In April, a series of negotiations with the Red Cross allowed the release of several hundred inmates (mostly French). But between April 20 and 28, several hundred prisoners (certainly at least 650) taken from the Krankenlager or Revier (Russian camp) were murdered in the main camp’s gas chamber. Among them, a large number of Italians. On April 29, the gas chamber was partially dismantled. On May 5, 1945, two Allied armored vehicles reached the Mauthausen camp, and the International Resistance Committee (among its members, the Italian Giuliano Pajetta), which had formed clandestinely in March, took over the camp, liberating it with weapons seized from the Nazis. At that time, the main camp held approximately 20,000 prisoners, almost all of them on the brink of survival. More than 10% died within a month of liberation. It is estimated that approximately 230,000 deportees passed through the complex of camps dependent on Mauthausen. At least 120,000 people died.
