Mauthausen Parachute Jump

Often Prisoners were made to run up and down the stairs till most were dead. Sometimes the remaining ones would be made to jump off the top of the quarry.

SS humor coined it “the parachute jump”.

In 1941 a large group of Jews from the Netherlands were given “special treatment”.

They were made to slide down the loose stones on the side of the staircase. Many of them died in the effort.

The survivors were made to run up and down the steps with 25 kilo stones on their backs. Often the stones fell on feet and legs of those behind.

Those who lost the rock were brutally beaten.

For two days the SS drove the Jews up and down the steps. On the third day, driven by despair, the remaining Jews joined hands and leaped over the precipice tp their death in the quarry below. [1][1]


[1] Konnilyn Feig, 1979, Hitler’s Death Camps: The Sanity of Madness, New York: Holmes and Meier. p. 121.

Mauthausen Rock Quarry | Mauthausen Wiener Graben>