1 . The Gusen concentration camp after its liberation , May 1945 | Photo : US Signal Corps , US National Archives and Records Administration
On 5 May 1945 , the Gusen concentration camp was liberated first , followed by Mauthausen , by a reconnaissance unit of the 3rd U . S . Army . Of the at least 71,000 people imprisoned in Gusen I , II , and III between 1939 and 1945 , at least 35,800 lost their lives .
Gusen as a Space of Memory
At the end of July 1945 , the U . S . Army withdrew from Gusen and Mauthausen , and the two former camps became part of the Soviet occupation zone . What happened to both places in the post-war period was very different . In the case of the former Mauthausen concentration camp , in June 1947 the Soviets handed it over to the Republic of Austria , obligating the Austrian state to preserve it as a space of memory . The Soviet decision was crucial in ensuring that large parts of the former Mauthausen concentration camp have been preserved in their original state to this day .
Meanwhile , at the site of the former Gusen concentration camp , Soviet occupying forces continued to exploit the quarries by creating a new state-owned company called USIA . By the late 1940s , most of the
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