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Casting of a long fire hook used with the crematorium ovens at Mauthausen concentration camp

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    Overview

    Brief Narrative
    Painted fiberglass casting of a long fire hook from the crematorium at Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, commissioned by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for installation in the museum’s permanent exhibition. In March 1938, Germany annexed Austria, and established a concentration camp roughly three miles from the town of Mauthausen the following August. It originally functioned as a forced-labor camp with a granite quarry. Additionally, in 1941, the camp began to carry out mass killings using gas and several other methods. The systematic killings necessitated the construction of a crematorium facility at the camp, and the dehumanization of prisoners’ deaths was compounded by the high-volume and industrialized body disposal methods. The fire hook was an aid used to unload bodies off the stretcher (for an example from the collection, see CA91.1.7) into the muffle, oven chamber, (for an example from the collection, see CA91.1.10). The prisoners loading the stretchers were ordered to stack the bodies in arrangements that allowed them to burn as efficiently and quickly as possible. The hook may have also been used to scrape out ash from where it collected at the bottom of the oven. The cremation tools at Mauthausen—and most of those used in crematoriums throughout Europe at the time—were supplied by the German-based engineering and manufacturing company, J.A. Topf & Sons. The metal components of Mauthausen’s furnace—including the fire hook—were shipped to Mauthausen at the end of September 1942. The last mass murder in the Mauthausen gas chamber occurred on April 28, 1945. The SS abandoned the camp on May 3 and US troops arrived within days.
    Date
    manufacture:  after 1989 August 15-before 1991 March 18
    Geography
    representation: Mauthausen (Concentration Camp); Mauthausen (Austria)
    manufacture: West Sussex (England)
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection
    Contributor
    Manufacturer: Edward Lawrence Associates (Export) Limited

    Physical Details

    Classification
    Tools and Equipment
    Category
    Equipment
    Object Type
    Firesets (aat)
    Physical Description
    Painted fiberglass casting of an iron fire hook. It is a single, long, cylindrical, rod that curves into a wide, oblong loop on end. On the opposite end, the rod is bent at a ninety-degree angle that flattens into the tip, which was used to move materials within the fire. The bar is slightly bent in the center. The casting is painted a reddish brown to resemble corroded iron of the original fire hook.
    Dimensions
    overall: Height: 0.750 inches (1.905 cm) | Width: 5.750 inches (14.605 cm) | Depth: 63.125 inches (160.338 cm)
    Materials
    overall : fiberglass, paint

    Rights & Restrictions

    Conditions on Access
    No restrictions on access
    Conditions on Use
    No restrictions on use

    Keywords & Subjects

    Geographic Name
    Mauthausen (Austria)

    Administrative Notes

    Provenance
    The fire hook casting was acquired by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1991.
    Primary Number
    CA91.1.8
    Record last modified:
    2023-05-24 08:47:37
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn14225

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