Memorial Plaque for the French Prisoners of the Concentration Camp Loibl-Nord

From 1943 to 1945, two concentration camps were located at the Loibl Pass, subcamps of the main camp Mauthausen. Prisoners were forced to work on the construction of the Loibl Tunnel from both the northern side (present-day Austria) and the southern side (present-day Slovenia). Those who were no longer able to work were deported to the Mauthausen concentration camp for execution. At least 39 prisoners died at the Loibl Pass itself; the majority of them were executed after failed escape attempts or died as a result of mistreatment by the guards or medical experiments conducted by the camp physician. The French prisoner organization “Amicale de Mauthausen” installed a French-language commemorative plaque in the middle of the 1970s at the northern entrance of the Loibl Tunnel, in memory of the murdered French prisoners. These prisoners, numbering approximately 800 men, formed the largest group of prisoners in the Loibl-Nord and Loibl-Süd camps.