Mauthausen, Austria. The gas chamber (Zyklon-B gas) played a key role in the extermination operations: it was put into operation in May 1942, with the elimination of 208 Soviet prisoners of war. Over the course of four years, approximately 5,000 people were killed there: political opponents deemed dangerous, sick, and unfit for work (from the Revier). Furthermore, between 1941 and 1942, the sick and unfit at Gusen were also killed in a vehicle that shuttled between Gusen and Mauthausen, where the transported (in groups of 30) were probably asphyxiated with carbon monoxide. Finally, between August 1941 and December 1944, the gas chamber at Hartheim Castle (20 km from Linz) eliminated further sick, disabled, and selected prisoners from the Mauthausen, Gusen, and Dachau concentration camps (code name: Action “14f13”): approximately 8,000 people in total, 5,000 of whom were transported from Mauthausen and Gusen. By the end of 1942, the “Mauthausen system” numbered 14,000 prisoners.
