Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
“Humanity without borders” is the call that gathers us this year to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the victory over fascism and, in this case, the liberation of Mauthausen Concentration Camp.
The Cuban Embassy in Austria, in coordination with “Cuba Va”, the Association of Cuban Residents in Austria and “ÖKG”, the Austria-Cuba Friendship Association, as every year, pays homage to the 190,000 human beings, from more than 40 countries, who suffered the horrors of fascism at Mathausen-Gusen Concentration Camp complex and its subcamps. Almost 90,000 were killed.
Mauthausen was classed as "Grade III", the most rigorous of the Nazi regime´s concentration camps. People entered there, without hope of leaving that place. Its main victims were political prisoners, anti-fascist fighters. The extermination of the prisoners through forced labor and vile exploitation was the main objective.
This year, we symbolically placed flowers in the collective sarcophagus and in the plaque that reminds us of the Cuban patriots Roberto Cortezón Martínez, Félix Llanos Alonso, Alberto Sánchez Martínez, José Luis Pérez Arocha, and Manuel Sola Castillo, who were captured and handed over by Vichy regime collaborators to the Hitler´s hordes in occupied France and confined as stateless persons in Mauthausen. They, like many other compatriots, were part of the International Brigades that, from the side of the Republic, fought fascism in the Spanish Civil War. They also represent the genesis of the internationalist and disinterested spirit which has characterized the Cuban people, for which at this moment 19 Cuban medical brigades are supporting various countries to contribute to the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nowadays, Mauthausen Memorial is an international place of remembrance and political and historical education. It is the responsibility of progressive, pacifist and anti-fascist humanity to alert and close ranks against the advance of threats and aggressions of xenophobia, racism, and genocidal blockades!
Eternal glory to the victims of fascism!
No fascism again!
Always to the victory!
Thank you very much.
(EmbaCuba Austria)