There was a quarry in Mauthausen and prisoners were forced to climb the 186 steps of the Wiener Graben (so was called the quarry) with large blocks of granite on their backs. On their first journey twenty-five kilogram stones but on each successive journey they increased the weight of the load. The SS guards invented competitions betting on which prisoner would make it to the top first. Those surviving the ordeal would then be forced to jump from the edge of the quarry to their death below..
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