From 1938 to 1945, the Mauthausen concentration camp was the center of a system of more than 40 subcamps and the central site of political, social, racial and anti-Semitic persecution by the Nazi regime on Austrian territory.

The central task of the memorial is to anchor the history of the Mauthausen concentration camp and its subcamps, the memory of their victims and the responsibility of the perpetrators and bystanders in the public consciousness. At the same time, public discussion of history in the light of its significance for the present and future is also to be promoted.

The pedagogically trained mediators on site take care of the visitors and try to sensitize them to National Socialist re-enactment, anti-Semitism, racism, discrimination against minorities and hostility to democracy.