“She said:“Let's hide the Russian prisoners. Perhaps then God will keep our sons alive. " About the unknown feat of the peasant Langthaler - in a special report "AiF".
“Fifteen-year-old boys from the Hitler Youth bragged to each other - which of them killed the most defenseless people. One took out of his pocket and showed his friend a bunch of cut off ears - both laughed. One farmer found a Russian hiding in a barn with sheep, and stabbed him with a knife - the man was convulsing, and the murderer's wife scratched the dying face. 40 corpses were piled on the street of the village of Ried in der Riedmarkt with their bellies ripped open, their genitals exposed: the girls, passing by, laughed. Reading the archive of the Mauthausen concentration camp, I (who had been in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria) had to take breaks to calm down - my blood runs cold when you learn that the respectable Austrian peasants got up with the escaped Soviet prisoners of war just 3 months (!) Before the Victory. And only one and only woman in Austria, mother of many children Maria Langthaler, risking her life, hid the prisoners of Mauthausen. And her four sons at that moment were fighting on the Eastern Front …
In the barracks of Mauthausen. Photo: www.globallookpress.com
You don't have Hitler
On the night of February 2–3, 1945, the most massive escape in its history was made from Mauthausen. One group of prisoners from Unit 20 threw stones and shovel handles with machine gunners, the second closed the electric fence with wet blankets and quilted jackets. 419 captured Soviet officers managed to break free. Camp commandant, Standartenfuehrer CC Franz Zierais urged the population of the surrounding villages to take part in the search for the fugitives: "You are passionate hunters, and this is much more fun than chasing hares!" Old people and teenagers have teamed up with the SS and the police to fish in the forests and brutally kill people who could barely keep their feet from hunger and frost. Almost all the fugitives died in a week. Only 11 people were saved, two of them - officers Mikhail Rybchinsky and Nikolai Tsemkalo - were sheltered by the peasant Maria Langtaler.
Captured Soviet officers of Unit 20 in Mauthausen. Photo: from the archives of the Mauthausen Museum
“The Russians knocked on our door in broad daylight,” says Maria’s daughter, 84-year-old Anna Hakl, who was 14 at the time of the events. - Asked to give them something to eat. I asked afterwards: why did the prisoners dare to enter our house, when all the people around were simply mad? They replied: "We looked through the window, you don't have a portrait of Hitler on your wall." The mother told the father, "Let's help these people." Dad got scared: “What are you, Maria! Neighbors and friends will report us! " Mom replied: "Perhaps then God will keep our sons alive."
In the picture (second row, extreme left and right) Mikhail Rybchinsky and Nikolai Tsemkalo, a teenage girl in the middle - Anna Hakl, in the first row, extreme left - Maria Langtaler, next to her her husband. Photo: from the archives of the Mauthausen Museum
At first, the prisoners were hidden among the hay, but in the morning an SS detachment came to the hayloft and turned over the dry grass with bayonets. Rybchinsky and Tsemkalo were lucky - the blades miraculously did not touch them. A day later, the SS men returned with the shepherd dogs, but Maria took the Mauthausen prisoners to a closet in the attic. Having asked her husband for tobacco, she scattered it on the floor … The dogs could not take the trail. After that, for 3 long months, the officers hid at her house on the Winden farm, and every day it became more and more terrible: the Gestapo officers constantly executed traitors from the local population. Soviet troops had already taken Berlin, and Maria Langthaler, going to bed, did not know what would happen tomorrow. On May 2, 1945, a "traitor" was hanged near her house: the poor old man hinted that, since Hitler was dead, he had to surrender.
“I myself don’t know where my mother got such self-control,” says Anna Hackl. - Once an aunt came to us and was surprised: “Why are you saving bread, for whom? You yourself have nothing to eat! " Mother said that she was drying crackers on the road: "They are bombing - suddenly you have to move …" Another time, the neighbor looked at the ceiling and said: "There is something creaking, as if someone is walking …" Mom laughed and answered: "Why are you, it's just pigeons! " In the early morning of May 5, 1945, American troops came to our farm, and the Volkssturm units fled. Mom put on a white dress, went up to the attic and said to the Russians: "My children, you are going home." And she began to cry.
The house where our officers were hiding. Photo: from the archives of the Mauthausen Museum
Crazed by blood
January 1945. When I talked to the villagers around Mauthausen, they confessed: they are ashamed of the terrible atrocities that their grandfathers and grandmothers committed. Then the peasants mockingly nicknamed the massacre "Mühlfiertel's Hunt for Hares." Hundreds of our prisoners were beaten to death by blood-mad "peaceful citizens" … Only in the 80s and 90s. they began to talk about this terrible tragedy in Austria - they made a film, the books "February Shadows" and "Your mother is waiting for you" were published. In 2001, with the help of the Austrian Socialist Youth organization, a monument to the fallen Soviet prisoners was erected in the village of Ried in der Riedmarkt. Sticks are depicted on the granite stele - 419, according to the number of fugitives. Almost all are crossed out - only 11 are intact. In addition to Frau Langthaler, the Russians risked hiding Ostarbeiters from Poles and Belarusians in cattle sheds.
Unfortunately, Maria Langthaler died shortly after the war, but the people she saved lived a long life. Nikolai Tsemkalo died in 2003, Mikhail Rybchinsky survived him for 5 years, raising his grandchildren. Maria's daughter, 84-year-old Anna Hackl, still lectures on the events of "Bloody February". Alas, Maria Langthaler did not receive any reward for her feat from the government of the USSR, although in Israel the Germans who hid Jews during the war are awarded orders and the title of "righteous man." Yes, and in our country this terrible massacre is little known: almost no flowers are laid at the monument in Ried in der Riedmarkt, all mourning events are held in Mauthausen. But do you know what is the main thing here? All four sons of Maria Langthaler subsequently returned from the Eastern Front alive - as if in gratitude for the good deeds of this woman. This, perhaps, is the most ordinary, but at the same time a real miracle …
