ÖSTERREICH	AUSTRIA
Bundesland: Oberösterreich	Upper Austria
Bezirk: Perg

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Mauthausen is situated at an elevation of 250 m on the left bank of the river Danube opposite of the mouth of the river Enns. During the early Middle Ages ships it was a toll station for ships. In 1189, Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa devastated the village because his knights who went on a cruisade were charged this toll although Duke Leopold V had granted them fere passage. The status of a market town was first mentioned in a document in 1335. Trading in salt was always important for Mauthausen. A privilege for this salt trading was documented in 1406. The Hussites destroyed the town in 1414. During the 19th century, the position of Mauthausen as a market town was further secured when the first 'flying bridge' across the river was built. During World War I, Mauthausen was the site of a camp for prisoners of war. In 1938, the Nazis built a concentration camp north-west of Mauthausen. The camp today is a museum devoted to the documentation of the horrors of the Nazi regime.

The parish church Sankt Nikolaus [left] was built in Late Gothic style 1490–1500. A Late Gothic crucifix in the chancel dates from 1490/1520. The high altar of 1708 holds an altar-piece painted by Martin Johann Schmidt (Kremser Schmidt) in 1796/97. The tower of the church was heightened in 1689; the Neo-Gothic spire was added in 1901. Since 1122 the parish belongs to the monastery of Stankt Florian. Until 1613 it was part of the neighbouring parish Ried/Riedmark.

Well-known survivors of the concentration camp are:

Leopold FIGL (1902–1965), politician, 1945 co-founder of the Austrian People's Party (öVP), chairman öVP 1945–51, Federal Chancellor of Austria1945–53, 1953–59 Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs, 1959–62 First President of the Nationalrat (1st chamber of the Austrian Parliament), 1962–65 Governor of Lower Austria.

Simon WIESENTHAL (b.1908), pursuer of Nazi criminals, worked for the U.S. War Crimes Office from 1945–47, founded the Jewish Documentation Centre in Linz in 1947 (in Vienna since 1961).

Leon ZELMAN (b.1928), journalist, co-founder (1978) and head of the Jewish Welcome Service Vienna with the purpose of inviting Jewish emigrants to Vienna who had been forced to leave Austria in 1938.