Mathausen concentration camp, near the holiday town of the same name and not far from Linz, Hitler’s home town, was Austria’s main forced labour camp during World War ll. About 50 subcamps dotted the small country. Did residents really not know what was going on? Will and I wondered as we toured the Mathausen camp remains during our trip to Austria this spring.  We spent four hours on the site and didn’t see or hear it all.

The wall that used to be topped with electrified barbed wire still stands.

Two barracks line the main courtyard, the remainder having been torn down. We saw dormitories where inmates slept 2-4 to a bunk, disinfection showers, cermatoria, gas chambers and corners where disobedient inmates were shot. The audio guide described the daily life enhanced with survivors’ memories about such matters as camp hierarchy and humiliation tactics guards used to beat sprirts down. What kept inmates going and, in some cases, led them to toe the line was a hope for personal survival.

The site is part monument. Visitors leave wreathes and post documents on memorial walls. There’s a hall of victims’ names. Outside the camp’s front gate, countries have erected statues  commemorating their deceased citizens. Inmates were sent from all over Europe, although the largest number, and lowest on the hierarchy, were Russians.

From the statues, we walked to a ledge overlooking the stone quarry, where inmates were led out to work every day. Numerous emaciated men dropped dead while lugging rocks up the quarry’s 186 steps. Sometimes, for fun, guards lined up four or five of these work slaves on a ledge and ordered them to push the person in front of them off.

It’s bizarre to realize this closed world existed, where abhorrent behaviour was accepted as normal.

When the US army liberated the camp, some soldiers filmed the scenes they found. Skeletal figures gaped at us blankly from the movie in the site auditorium.  The film included interviews with residents of the nearby town. A pleasant-looking man talked of making daily supply deliveries to the camp. He was horrified by what he saw, but didn’t do anything. Townspeople of the time complained about the stench coming from the camp.

Inmates in the camp prison were treated worst, so badly they lost all hope. With nothing to lose, a group of Russian prisoners organized an escape. They climbed on each others’ backs so the top ones could make it over the electric barbs. For the ones on the bottom this was a suicide mission. They knew they would be killed when the guards found out.

In the film, a Russian escapee who ultimately made it to safety spoke of running from the camp and reaching a farmhouse, where he tried to explain to the owner who he was. The woman told him, “never mind, it doesn’t matter.” She hid him in the barn.

A woman interviewed recalled her mother hiding escapees  due to her deep, religious conviction. Did she realize she and her children would probably be shot if the Nazis discovered what she’d done? I’d like to think, in her situation, I would do the right thing. But would I have risked my own children?

Will and I included Karlovy Vary in our Czech Republic itinerary because I have a vague idea for a historical novel partially set in that town. Why Karlovy Vary, a place I had never visited? My maternal grandparents were Czech immigrants and the novel will be my fictionalized story of their immigrant journey.

For years, I had heard of Karlovy Vary as Karlsbad, its German name (Carlsbad in English).  From high school history, I recalled the term ‘Carlsbad Agreement’  or ‘Decrees’, although couldn’t remember what the decrees were about. I also knew Karlsbad was a classy spa frequented kings, aristrocrats and artists.

Driving into the town, my first impression was similar to that of Venice or Disneyland: streets of beautiful architecture too harmonious to be real. A closer look revealed anomalies, like the modern Hotel Thermal as well as factories and communist era block apartments outside the lovely spa zone.

European spa towns, like those in North America, develop in areas of natural springs. Both concern healing as well as recreation, but Karlovy Vary’s large spa resorts include hospital-like corridors where attendants dressed in medical scrubs give guests massages, mineral baths and other treatments that sometimes come with a doctor’s referral.

Since walks in the countryside are part of the spa treatment , well-marked trails criss-cross the hills surrounding Karlovy Vary. Our first morning, Will and I rode a funicular to the Diana Tower for spectacular views of the town and trees dressed in fresh, spring green.

We spent three more hours walking trails and wound down to the old town for lunch in an outdoor cafe. Prices are cheaper here than in the spa zone, which is still reasonably priced by our Canadian standards.

People with digestive complaints come to Karlovy Vary to drink the heavily mineralized spring water that ranges in temperature from 45 to 73 degrees Celsius. Shops all over town sell ‘flattened china teapots’ with spouts designed to let you sip without the minerals staining your teeth.

Free springs for sipping are located in colonades through the spa zone.  They are so subtle, we unknowing walked right by them on our first evening. The next day, with our spotting map, we found them all and sampled a few. Our guidebook warned us not to drink large amounts to not cause stomach upset. No problem, as the mineral content made the water taste quite foul.

At our hotel breakfast buffet on our last day, we met Sigbert, a German who had come to Karlovy Vary to reconnect with his roots. Sigbert was born in the region and lived there until age thirteen, an unhappy time he had avoided revisting until now. After World War ll, the Czechs expelled their German occupiers and persecuted the German nationals who remained. During the easing of communist travel restrictions in the late 1960s, Sigbert’s family was able to leave the country for a suitable payment. Sigbert ultimately became an engineer for Mercedes Benz in Stuttgart after a brief army assignment of listening in on Czech radio broadcasts from across the iron curtain.

Sigbert had opted to take the train to Karlovy Vary rather than drive because he was travelling alone and because Mercedes aren’t considered safe in Karlovy Vary, which is now largely owned by Russians. Our Czech-made Skoda was probably not at risk for theft. Sigbert recommended we visit a castle in Loket on our route out of Karlovy Vary.  He remembered it from a school trip and was going that day, so we offered him a lift. Together, we enjoyed seeing the castle’s great views and torture chambers most little boys would love.

In the castle parking lot, was a statue of the writer Goethe, who had visited Loket during a stay in Karlovy Vary. At age 72, Goethe fell in love with a local seventeen year old woman. For some reason, she rejected his advances.  At least he got a poem out of the  experience.

Will and I wrapped up a rainy day in Vienna with a visit to the Sigmund Freud museum, housed in the former apartment/office of the father of psychoanalyis. A self-guided audio tour took us through Freud’s residence, office waiting room, treatment room and den where he wrote his numerous psychology books. Not much remains of Freud’s original furnishings. He brought most with him to England when he left Vienna in 1938 to escape Nazi persecution.

The tour included home movies narrated by Freud’s daughter, Anna. Scenes showed Freud relaxing with his dog in the garden of a house he rented one summer in Grinzing, in the Vienna Woods north of the city.  The pleasant, family activies were followed by shots of downtown Vienna during the Anschluss, in March 1938, when Austria joined Nazi Germany. The massive, cheering crowds and giant swastika flag suggested Freud was wise to leave when he did.

The next day, our last in Vienna, we toured a palace/museum featuring art by Gustav Klimt. From the gardens, we viewed the hilly Vienna Woods. Through our week in the city, I’d been tempted by the woods’ romance due to the title of the famous Johann Strauss’ waltz Tales From the Vienna Woods. We stayed away, figuring the woods were just trees, like I could see at home, and bound to be disappointing. With decent weather and the major Vienna sites under our belts, we decided to go anyway.

The bus travelled through Grinzing, now absorbed into the greater Vienna as an upscale suburb. The driver let us out at the end of the line. We walked uphill through forest broken by glimpses of the city below. Since any kind of viewpoint looked too far out of our reach, we were all set to catch the bus down when another bus came roaring up. It turns out that only some buses stop a little past Grinzing while others go to a large parking lot at the top the highest hill in Vienna. We followed people to a restaurant, cafe and deck with spectacular views of the city. Enjoying our pricey beer, we ducked in and out of spitting rain.

No dout this viewpoint is packed on warm, sunny weekends. This marginal, week day it was quiet and one of the high lights of our Vienna trip. Had the weather been better, we’d have walked down to Grinzing on a trail through open meadow. Instead, we missed stopping in the historic village centre on our bus ride back to the city.

If I return to Vienna, and have a beautiful week day, I’d spend it in the Vienna Woods, hiking through paths to this panoramic lookout and Grinzing.

Last fall, I wrote a series of blog posts about my encounters with literary England and Wales. My trip to Austria and the Czech Republic this spring was less literary, not because those countries haven’t produced great literature – Kafka is integral to Prague and Goethe, while German, travelled everywhere.

But, in general, writers from middle Europe aren’t part of my literary tradition, so I didn’t seek them out.

Normally, my blog posts relate, in some way, to writing. But it’s summer and I’ve just returned from a long trip. So I’ll relax my standards and blog about my travels, inserting literary matters as they happen.

Our first day in Vienna, we encountered a major one, although we didn’t know it at the time.

Tired from our over-night flight, under overcast skies, we set out on a walking tour of central Vienna, with Rick Steeves’ Kobo tour as our guide.

At a park featuring statues honouring the Holocaust, the sky looked ready to burst. We ducked under the adjascent Mozart cafe’s huge awning and spent an hour drinking cappucino (me) and beer (Will) while watching the deluge. We later learned that Graeme Greene wrote his novella The Third Man at the Mozart Cafe. The story, set in post World War II Vienna, was later filmed in the city.

The Britsh Film Institue judged The Third Man the best British movie of the twentieth century. According to Wikepedia, Greene wrote the novella with the movie in mind (he later wrote the screenplay), which shows that books written from movies aren’t always slight.

Now that I’m home, I look forward to watching The Third Man again for the Vienna landmarks, like the Wiener Riesenrad (or Prater) ferris wheel. A few days into the trip, we considered riding the giant wheel after our bike ride through the Prater park. But the skies opened once again and sent us pedalling to shelter.

Bounce sheets

fastened around our  patio table umbrella.

It works!