The Grein Transfer

Tuesday 2 June produced a profound change of mood from elation at the ultimately fine navigation of the day before, to a detour that we all agreed would be one we should take after the recent vow to never again leave the direct Danube path. We saw that the former Mauthausen Concentration Camp Memorial was close to the path and that its museum could be visited by a slight detour up an incline with a 14 per cent gradient. While the very steep incline (for a kilometre straight up) took the physical breath out of all of us, it was really nothing on the breath taken out of our little group while visiting the Memorial.

Mauthausen is situated in steep, green, lush countryside and with such a setting you can’t but help think about the profound irony with the horror that occurred there. The statistics of the camp alone are chilling. More than 195,000 people were imprisoned in Mauthausen and its sub-camps, and more than 105,000 of them were killed there or perished there. The camp was liberated on 5 May, 1945. Prisoners were there because of nationality, racial origin, political affiliation or religious beliefs.

Our party of five has ages ranging from 24 to 61 and we were all more moved than any of us expected to be. I can’t really describe the effects on us other than to say it was one of the most powerful places any of us has ever visited. You could also see the effects of the place on the faces of the many other visitors from all nations who were quiet, reverential and respectful. There was none of the normal madness of loud, large groups.

You might check out a good background website at http://www.scrapbookpages.com/mauthausen/KZMauthausen/History/introduction.html

We did not have too much time for immediate reflection as we had to make it to Grein by 5pm to catch a lift ‘up the hill’ from the Grein wharf for ourselves and our bikes to avoid what looked like a really steep climb.

We were back on the north side of the river after Linz so headed towards Grein in slight drizzle via a late lunch at a rebuilt Celtic village (near Lehen) that turned on a warm fire and bowl of soup for us -we had been fantasizing about such a combination! (See Bas' photo) And the rain stopped….

And we kept meeting the same pilgrims along our path- some with whom we shared some disjointed conversation at night if we all ended up in the same place and some with whom we shared some commentary on the track. We were all becoming much more aware of the ‘bigger group’ on his trek - you can’t help but be amazed about the variety of kayakers, walkers, bikies, and cyclists each on their own pilgrimage. As well,lots of families with children under 12ish were doing the trek. While it isn’t quite the Canterbury Tales it might be a modern version thereof.

So we made it the 66 kms to the Grein pier- and were very glad that we did because it was a very steep incline up to Gasthof Zur Aumhule from where we had the easiest 5km of our journey, straight down hill the next morning.