August 8, 1938
First Prisoners Arrive at Mauthausen
Historical context
On this day, August 8, 1938, the SS transferred the first prisoners from Dachau to Mauthausen and forced them to build the camp.
Archive record
Read the event, then follow its documented sources and archive threads.
- Date
- August 8, 1938
- Verified sources
- 2
- Archive threads
- 4
On this day, the SS transferred about 300 prisoners from Dachau to a quarry site near Mauthausen, on the Danube in Upper Austria. They were forced to begin building the camp. The Mauthausen Memorial dates this first transport to 8 August 1938, five months after the Anschluss.
USHMM records that SS Captain Albert Sauer presided over the camp’s administrative establishment on 1 August. The 8 August arrival is the opening of prisoner labor at the site, not that earlier administrative day. By the end of 1938 the camp held nearly 1,000 prisoners. It later became one of the most lethal camps in the German system.
Research trail
Sources and further reading
- Forced to Toil and Build Their Own Camp — arrival of the first prisoners, 8 August 1938 · KZ-Gedenkstätte Mauthausen · Mauthausen Memorial View source
- Mauthausen · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum · Holocaust Encyclopedia View source
Share this history
Support the work
If this history matters to you, you can support Jewish Original.