Mahnmal für den Frieden

The memorial for peace on Anton-Riepl-Straße commemorates the last months of the war in Gallneukirchen.

This hunt for people under the SS slogan "shoot them down like rabbits" also took place in Gallneukirchen. On the night of 2 February 1945, around 500 so-called K prisoners, mainly Soviet officers as prisoners of war, attempted to escape from death block 20 of the Mauthausen concentration camp at eight degrees Celsius below zero. One group attacked the two watchtowers with the fire extinguishers from their barracks and various projectiles, while a second group short-circuited the electric fence with damp blankets and pieces of clothing. The prisoners then climbed over the wall. Initially, 419 prisoners managed to leave the camp area. However, many of the starving refugees collapsed exhausted in the snow shortly after the wall or died in the hail of bullets from the machine guns.
machine guns.
All those who were unable to escape into the woods and 75 sick people left behind in the block were executed that very night. In total, over 300 prisoners managed to escape for the time being. That very morning, the SS camp administration called for a "manhunt", in which the SS, SA, gendarmerie, fire brigade, Wehrmacht, Volkssturm and Hitler Youth as well as the local civilian population took part.
The aim of this three-week-long "manhunt" was "not to bring anyone back to the camp alive". The majority of the fugitives were apprehended and mostly killed on the spot. The dead prisoners were taken to Ried in der Riedmark, the base of the "hunt", where they were piled up in a heap. Members of the Volkssturm who brought prisoners back to the concentration camp were insulted for not killing them immediately.