Easter Sunday..Mauthausen-Gusen Concentration Camp

He sets a glass of wine in front of me and I take a large swig.
It has been a very pleasant drive and we are steeling ourselves for what lies ahead...we are about to visit a Nazi death camp that has been turned into a memorial lest we ever forget.
He looks at me and suggests we can go somewhere else. I assure him I am fine and up to the trip. Some invisible force is pulling me...I must go.

The only words that can describe our visit to Mauthausen is that it was a shocking experience. There are no boxes of shoes, hair, glasses, few photographs but it's bleakness is a hundred times more haunting. There is a deathly silence. As I walked into the chamber were prisoners were beaten to death I feel the nausea hit me and feel as if a freezing hand is bearing down on me. Mausthausen has memorials but how can it be a fitting memorial for those inmates stripped outside in sub zero conditions, hosed with freezing cold water and literally left to die an agonising, freezing, slow death or to have to walk the, 'Stairway of Death,' with heavy stone blocks on their backs knowing that the only thing that awaited them was death.
We stand on the cliff looking into the Wiener Graben Stone Quarry were hundreds were pushed to their deaths. I am frozen to the spot. I think of the thousands in this death camp. Criminals, priests, Jews, POW, state enemies, children and the most brave of all the Fearless Women...the female agents who worked along side the Maquis and various underground groups.
I remind myself to rent the film Female Agents (Les femmes de l'ombre) when we get home. Jailed, tortured and beaten for helping people to freedom. A man next to me speaks to me in French and I reply, then he wanders away blowing his nose and wiping tears from his eyes.
I wander a hundred yards further and a very old lady in a wheel chair is pushed by a middle aged man. They stop beside us. The lady says hello and I reply good afternoon. She looks at me and says, 'I hope you do not mind but you're French is very good for an English girl.' I chuckle and explain. I ask her why she wanted to visit Mausthausen. She replies, 'I was here once before.' I am unsure how to reply to this and I can see she has taken in my stricken and shocked face. She says, 'I was not a prisoner...I came into the camp as it was liberated to Nurse.' I was a QA. All I can say is, 'Oh my God.' By this time the two men are chatting too.
She looks at me and says have you had something to eat would you like to join us for a meal at our hotel. I am taken a back this sweet, strange old lady who has no idea who we are has asked me to sit and eat with her.
I am now stood at the side of her wheelchair and she reaches out and takes my hand, for some strange reason I do not pull away.
She says to me, this must be extremely hard for you being Jewish.
I am frozen to the spot and through the fog I hear his voice saying, 'of course we would love to join you for something to eat.'