In the margins of the main commemorative ceremony on the occasion of the 73rd anniversary of the Liberation of Mauthausen Concentration Camp, the Embassy of Cuba in Austria organized a solemn ceremony before the plaque that remembers the five Cuban antifascist fighters who were victims of the genocide of the Nazi-fascist hordes in this camp which has been transformed into a Memorial.
Representatives from the Austrian Communist and Socialist Youth, the Workers´ Party, the Austria-Cuba Friendship Association (ÖKG), the Association of Cuban Residents (“Cuba Va”), Cuban officials from International Organizations and the personnel of the Embassy of Cuba in Austria participated in the ceremony.
The Ambassador of Cuba, H.E. Mr. Juan Antonio Fernández Palacios, while delivering the main speech paid tribute to the memory of the Cubans Roberto Cortezón Martínez, Félix Llanos Alonso, Alberto Sánchez Martínez, José Luis Pérez Arocha and Manuel Sola Castillo who after fighting on the Spanish Republic side, as part of the internationalist contingent during the Spanish Civil War were caught by the Nazi-fascist hordes in the occupied France and then they were confined as stateless in Mauthausen.
The Ambassador together with the workers of the diplomatic mission and Cuban residents in Austria laid the wreaths of flowers before the plaque that remembers the Cubans and also before the sarcophagus that remembers all the victims of the Holocaust, as part of the main ceremony.
The Ambassador exchanged greetings with the Austrian Federal President, Alexander Van der Bellen; the Federal Chancellor, Sebastian Kurz; the former Federal President, Heinz Fischer, various ministers of the Austrian Government, diplomatic representations, international anti-fascist organizations present in the ceremony.
Between year 1938 and 1945 about 140 000 human beings from 40 nations were exterminated in the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp complex.
Nowadays, Mauthausen Memorial is an international remembrance site as well as a political and historical education place.
(Embacuba Austria)