Block 5 (Jewish block)

 barracks, concentration camp, historical layer / disappeared object

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Block 5 , the Jewish block, in some cases also for political prisoners of a special kind... the staff were all criminal prisoners excused from work and well-fed because they stole the measly rations from Jewish inmates. Jews were only given half the rations of “non-Jewish detainees” in Mauthausen. The block was inside the camp and was fenced in by extra barbed wire. From work it was straight to the block, there was no contact whatsoever with other prisoners .
Jewish prisoners were beaten by SS and Kapos and forced to keep a running pace while carrying 100kg stones or pulling iron rolls for road construction. Many broke down, were beaten to death or shot because they could not keep up. Quite a few, in desperation tried to commit suicide by jumping off the “parachute wall” or running through the electric fence. Many of them, though, were forced off the wall or driven into the fence.
The Dutch Jews were the largest group of Jewish prisoners between 1941 and 1942. Only nine months after the Germans had occupied the Netherlands, from February 1941 onwards, as many as 1,400 people were deported to Mauthausen and, with a few exceptions were murdered there. The German occupying forces threatened to undertake further deportations to pressurize the Dutch Jewish Council into collaborating. Thus, in the Netherlands Mauthausen came to symbolize the extermination of approx. 105,000 people, as estimated by Raoul Hilberg.