EBENSEE/WELS II [aka WELS]

The Wels II subcamp was located approximately 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) southwest of Linz, in the village of Wels, whose railway tracks and station had been destroyed by Allied air raids. About 1,000 male inmates arrived at Wels from Mauthausen on March 24, 1945. The majority of them were metalworkers by profession—which could indicate that they were meant to be employed with the Flugzeug- und Metallbauwerke Wels (Aircraft and Metal Construction Company, Wels). The next, day, 1,000 more inmates arrived from the Ebensee subcamp. All the inmates worked in 12- hour shifts, cleaning the railway station of Wels. They were accommodated in a big factory hall, which was not fenced and had no kitchen and no sanitary installations. The inmates were guarded by SS and Home Guard (Volkssturm). On April 6, 400 inmates unable to work were sent to the Ebensee camp and replaced by 400 new inmates—an indication of the exhausting conditions under which the inmates worked and lived. In 1979, the Inter...