In June of 1944, the Jewish Aid and Rescue Committee bribed German officers to divert six trains carrying Jews to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Five of the trains were brought to the area of present-day Austria, where the deported Jews were forced to work for the SS, escaping certain death in the camps. But the deportees? situation took a turn for the worse and a group was taken to Persenbeug, in today?s Lower Austria in April. From there, the Jews were to be taken to the Mauthausen concentration camp, but the SS decided instead to execute them. On the night of May 2, 1945, one day before the liberation, they were driven to nearby Hofamt Priel and shot. The 223 corpses were doused with fuel and burned, then the SS forced the locals to bury the remains in a mass grave.
Their personal effects were later placed with the Jewish Congregation of Vienna and are now part of the exhibition ?Forced Labour 1944-1945?, which runs until July 16, 2006.
