ABSTRACT
Can the mind conceive anything more monstrous than Mauthausen Mutterlager? The contender is Mutter Mauthausen's even uglier daughter Gusen. Razola has written of Mauthausen-Gusen, that nothing can be said about KZ life elsewhere that is not gentle in comparison, 1 and he describes the shock of those sent from Mauthausen when they found conditions at Gusen even worse. 2 Since Ziereis controlled every one of the sixty or more Nebenlager in Austria from his base in Mauthausen, there was no reason why any particular camp should have a worse reputation than another, or why an external Kommando should be worse than the mother camp. All prisoners assigned to Gusen were under the direct command of Bachmayer, as they were at Mauthausen. From survivors who knew both, however, the story that emerges is that most of what happened at Gusen happened at Mauthausen too, but the tempo at Gusen was speeded up, and the cruelty, in some respects, refined.
