Business Park to Be Built on Former Nazi Camp Site

A significant uproar has arisen in Austria regarding the plan to build a business park on part of the site of a former Nazi camp. The project includes the construction of a refrigerated warehouse and other commercial facilities, while the Lidl chain is planning to open a store in the nearby area. This was reported by AFP.

The site is located near the town of Leobersdorf, approximately 40 kilometers south of Vienna. During World War II, this area housed a large complex of forced labor camps run by the Nazis.

Following the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938, thousands of prisoners of war and forced laborers were incarcerated in the complex known as Weinberglager. Later on, it also hosted a branch of the Mauthausen concentration camp, known as Hirtenberg, which was one of the largest camps in Austria that detained exclusively women.

From September 1944 to April 1945, around 400 women, mostly from the Soviet Union, Italy, and Poland, were held at Hirtenberg and were forced to produce ammunition at a nearby factory.

After the war, most of the camp's barracks and structures were gradually demolished, transformed, or destroyed. Only some sections and ruins remain today.

In 2024, plans to develop a business park on part of the site were revealed. Archaeological studies have uncovered preserved remnants of the former camp complex; however, the Austrian Federal Monuments Office has determined that these findings are insufficient to confer monument status to the area.

Construction work is currently underway, while activists are again demanding the preservation of the remaining portions of this historic site. "No new buildings should be erected on the site of the former concentration camp," stated the International Committee of Mauthausen.

Josef Pumberger, a representative from the Mauthausen Austrian Committee, expressed that the ongoing developments evoke feelings of