The commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp was held on Monday 10 May 2015.
The Mauthausen concentration camp was established by the SS in August 1938, five months after the annexation of Austria to the German Reich. It was a category III concentration camp, the classification with the most brutal detention conditions.
In total, almost 200,000 people from practically every European country as well as non-European countries were deported to Mauthausen on account of their political activity, their "criminal record", religious conviction, homosexuality, for "racist" reasons or as prisoners of war. Half of them died there.
Ambassador Mary Whelan attended the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Mauthausen concentration camp and laid a wreath on behalf of the Government and people of Ireland at the memorial in the centre of the camp.
