Gunskirchen

Gunskirchen is a town in the Austrian state of Upper Austria. During World War II one of the sub-camps of the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp was located in the village. The camp was rather short-lived. In December 1944, construction for the Gunskirchen camp began. It was planned to house several hundred slave laborers. When the camp was opened in April 1945, however, thousands of prisoners evacuated on death marches from Mauthausen started to flood Gunskirchen.

In these overcrowded conditions, diseases such as typhus and dysentery. The 71st immediately began requisitioning supplies and transportation from the local town to provide the prisoners with food and water. The 71st Infantry Division was recognized as a liberating unit by the United States Army Center of Military History and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1988. On May 4, 1945, the 71st Infantry Division liberated Gunskirchen. When troops of the 71st entered the camp, they learned that the SS guards had fled the corpse-littered camp days before. Some 15,000 prisoners were still in the camp.