Austria to change two streets named after Nazi supporters
The Austrian government has long been criticised by historians for the way it has acknowledged its part in World War Two, and in particular for positioning itself as a victim rather than a participant.The move to rename the streets has been welcomed as a "decision with symbolic significance" by the committee that oversees the Mauthausen concentration camp in northern Austria, where at least 90,000 prisoners were killed between 1938–1945.Committee chairman Willi Mernyi told local media that the committee has "worked hard for this", and thanked all who supported them.Robert Eiter, a committee member, added that they had suggested the names be changed to honour Austrians who actively opposed the Nazis - Maria Stromberger, who joined the resistance while working as the head nurse at Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, and Lea Olczak, former deputy mayor of Braunau, whose father died in Mauthausen.Many streets in Austria have already been renamed due to their Nazi associations, including one honouring Ferdinand Porsche, founder of the luxury car company, in the city of Linz - but 80 years on, others still remain.Around 65,000 Austrian Jews were killed in the Holocaust during World War Two, when the Nazi party, led by Adolf Hitler, worked to eradicate Europe's Jewish population, as well as the Slavic and Roma population. During the war, the Nazi regime systematically murdered more than six million Jewish people.
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