Today was a bit of a rollercoaster ride for the group. We departed Salzburg, en route to Vienna. Our first stop was at Mauthausen, a concentration camp from WWII. We split into two groups, and Michael and Stephan lead us through the camp, explaining its history and what really happened here. It's a somber experience to visit such a place, but it's educational too. At the end of our tour, Michael told us, "Why do we do this tour? Because it is our responsibility to remember what happened here. We have a responsibility not to close our eyes and ears to this, and to say something when we hear people that still believe in this wrong ideology, or say a (improper) joke about what happened." We spent longer than expected at Mauthausen, as most of the kids wanted to see the 45 minute movie in English that is offered, or to take the time to walk a long distance down the hill into the quarry where the prisoners were worked to death, to try to understand more what happened to these poor souls.
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