Prisoners & Hubers

We got up this morning at 6:30 AM!!!  So early…we got all ready and got to the Institute by 7:20 and loaded up onto this big tour bus.  We had a three hour drive to Mauthausen.  I managed to sleep the whole time.  When we got there, it was cold and foggy.  This is the site of one of the best-preserved concentration camps.  We watched a video about what went on there…the history and stories told by some old people, and actual footage of the prisoners.  The prisoners here were mostly from Russia I think…prisoners of war, or Jews, handicapped people…etc. Anything inferior.  They were kept in these camps doing manual labor while being beat and starved to death.  They were served 5 spoonfulls of soup every three days.  It gave us all a horrible feeling watching the short documentary.

(MO)

it is unreal what happened here....most documented photos I found online were pretty scary/horrific.
Just google "Mauthause" if you want to read more or see more pictures.

there was a room FULL of tables with these names glowing...it was dark--impossible to take a big picture

inside one of the chamber buildings where the prisoners were gassed......in this room they would look at their bodies and remove gold teeth etc.

so many memorials around here

This camp has the “Stairs of Death” (the Todesstiege) where the prisoners were forced to carry huge stones up and up.  They would fall to their death into the water fromthe top…or stumble on the steps and fall down where the guards would then shoot them or kick them to death.  We walked down the stairs.  The steps are tiny…easy to trip on.  My foot barely fit on one step I think.  The space below was beautiful, especially because the sun was just coming up over the hills where we were.  We could see the rocky hillside they had taken rocks out of to carry, and we could walk up to the edge of the water where many fell in and drowned.  They called this the quarry.

the stairs from above

the pathway above the stairs was pretty

the quarry rock..

the pool of water at the bottom.

STEPHANIE

my photo a day of HALEY

Onto our next outing!!  We got back on the bus and drove another hour and a half into a little town called Haag.  We have driven across the whole country in only a few hours!!  So crazy.  We got some lunch (I didn’t buy any—I ate a yogurt from my backpack and some jerky and crackers.  But then I got an ice cream for one Euro!)  We drove to a church and tried to find an old picture of Johan Huber in his old elementary school but they didn’t have one….we found the place where his grave used to be but they moved it.  The cemetery by the church was so cool!  Each grave was so nice with a whole cement square of a flower bed around. 

Oh and of course they found another kitty

This cute ivy-covered house is where some of the first church meetings were held here in Austria

We checked into our cute little hotel place!  It is not even a hotel..  It is a bed and breakfast.  Look how CUTE!  There are two yellow buildings.  The rooms are HUGE…there are 4 of us in my room (Kimber, Lexi, Katie).  One room has five—they have a huge front room and kitchen, and all their bedrooms are upstairs.  These rooms are really like nice apartments that you could live in with your family.  They are so big!!  But the best part is the yard/grounds.  First of all, there are cats EVERYWHERE…Monika and Stephanie are in heaven.  There are also cows and chickens and lots of other animals.  There is a nice pond with a waterfall, and FLOWERS everywhere!  And random little pathways….we had a little bit of time to explore.

(MO)

(MO)

We went to Johan Huber’s farm!  We learned about this on Sunday.  The lady who lives there now showed us around the property a little bit.  We went up above the garage in this secret room they used to have the first church meetings in (this guy was one of the first few Mormons in Austria).  Roger gets really excited about this guy…he is writing an entire book about his life.

up these stairs there is the secret room above the garage/shed they would have meetings in

She said we could “taste” some of her fruit from her trees….hahahaha this group LOVES FRUIT.  It was so funny.  We ate probably 5-10 plums a person, plus a couple apples, and maybe a pear.  I don’t know where they found the pears.   The plums were so good!!  I don’t think she was anticipating us being so ravenous.  Oh, our bus drive was with us for all of this laughing at us eating the fruit.  He is a funny guy.

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We went inside and she fed us SOUP!  It was some egg soup. Really good.  Then we got to look at this extremely old bible from 1705 I think.  So old.  It smelled like mold.  Haha.  Well after this, Roger knew we wouldn’t be full…… so he took us to a small grocery store to get some more snacks hahaha.  I thought this was so funny.  I didn’t have my wallet because I didn’t need more food and I didn’t want to spend more money!  I got a couple bites of breads, treats, and chocolates from everyone though.

 We went over to the LDS church where Roger gave his Johan Huber presentation (in German) (which we got on Sunday so we didn’t have to sit in again).  A group of us sat outside on the grass in the dark telling scary stories and talking and LAUGHING a LOT.  I love these people.

When the meeting was over (two hours later…) we were sure to pop in for the refreshments.  Oh my gosh we were so hungry again and too ravenous for me to even get any pictures of the cute refreshments.  So many different little pieces of bread with different meats and cheeses.  And apfelstrudel!!  And an apfelstrudel cream thing…it was like apple sauce.  It needed sugar.  Almost everything needs sugar.  I just want to carry around a sugar shaker in my purse… There were two elders there, one named Elder Elderedge from Pleasant Grove my same age, I didn’t know him though, and one named Elder….shoot his first name was Landon.  But he is from Idaho.  He knows Brendan too!!  It was fun to talk to them.

Amy...looks about right.  Cutest foods

We got back to our cute little place and got all settled for the night.  There is wifi but we never got the password from the owners!!  I worked on these photos…I guess my ISO settings were way too high.  I’ve never known what that meant but now I understand the difference it makes!  Haley and Stephanie taught me.  I am learning a lot!!

BED!

this was like the longest post ever I swear.