This book is terrific, although I just can't read it at night before going to bed, it just haunts me too much. It is so well written that it reads like a story, I expected more of a text book type format and even though it is like a text book with facts and figures, the way it is written (with the personal stories) keeps it from getting "technical". The authors did a wonderful job. It is a story that needs to be told. I think that I am a well read person and I have been to Dachau and I know about Auschwitz and Regensburg and I did know that there were many smaller camps all over Europe but I can't believe that I had never heard about such an enormous camp that was of such importance to the Nazi war machine. A must read!

I just received a copy of this book ... I had supplied some information on Bergkristall to Rudi to assist with the book. I also by chance ran into one of his co-authors, Jan-Ruth Mills, while researching at NARA II in College Park, MD. Jan was industriously researching for the book. The book's third author is Siegi Witzany-Durda. My primary interest in the book dealt with what Rudi and his co-authors had discovered about Me 262 fuselage production at St. Georgen near Linz, Austria. So, my first foray was to read that section of the book... The production of Me 262 fuselages, however, is only a sidelight to the real story told by Rudi and his co-authors, that being in the treatment of the CC inmates, in the camps, at the work sites, and in between. The systematic brutality is quite well documented, as well as the occasional showing of some kindnesses. The authors only ocassionally use adjectives in their descriptions that reflect on their own personal feelings of horror, but rather utilize the observations of the participants, themselves, that actually survived this holocaust; or of written records. Having completed the chapter specifically dealing with the Me 262, I read on, finally working my way into the chapter dealing with the liberation of the camps. Here, I found that a scant force of a platoon of 23 American soldiers liberated some 40,000 inmates at CC Mauthausen and Gusen I and II. Talk about being overwhelmed!! This turn of events occurred because the Allied commanders were focused on other priorities, one of which was to stop the Soviets in Czechoslovakia. There was also the threat of a last stand by the Germans, who had initiated a peace initiative with the threat that, failing that, there might be an unnecessarily bloody ending to the war. The book is exceptionally well written and researched. The footnote references as well as back of the book references are superb. Everything is backed up. While we tend to focus on air combats, aces, and aircraft details, this book presents the ugly underbelly of Nazi Germany as it relates to one specific aircraft's production. It should be must reading so that we can also gain perspective on just what was going on that the Allies, whether knowingly or not, were actually fighting. It isn't an easy read but, at the same time, it is tough to put down once you start into it.

After reading this impressive, richly documented history of the St. Georgen-Gusen-Mauthausen Concentration Camp Complex during World War II, my world has expanded. That is the gift of reading such a thoughtful, important history. The writing and publishing of this book is part of an amazing journey that began with Rudolph A. Haunschmied, a native of St. Georgen an der Gusen in northern Austria. In 1989, upon publishing of his work, titled "1938/1945 - Zum Gedenken", the inhabitants of his community and of the "world" began to hear parts of this untold history. St. Georgen-Gusen-Mauthausen takes that 1989 overview written in German, and brilliantly expands it to a comprehensive study in English, of the story of the St. Georgen-Gusen-Mauthausen Complex. It includes a top-secret underground war production plant; and the camp's liberation by the 71st Infantry Division of the U.S. Army. This study includes primary documents and photographs never published before in a brilliantly written story that has been kept secret from all, even the witnesses, the bystanders, and their subsequent generations. The authors and the Gusen Memorial Group plea for the journey of this story to continue. The epilogue describes this journey continuing through more research, and the "opening of the tunnels" to create a memorial. I doubt anyone can read this book without the conscious awareness of our present day genocide in this world. The last lines of the book are: "Let the lost stories and voices of 40,000 fill that darkness as once their hearts filled with the memory of love. Let us breathe in the last exhalations of the dead and then turn, each of us, to the light." I applaud the authors, Jan-Ruth Mills, Siegi Witzany-Durda and Mr. Rudolf Haunschmied for this extraordinary well written work that documents an important part of history and reminds us of the power of the light.