The website for the former concentration camp Mauthausen, now a memorial site, was the victim of a cyberattack on Friday, the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Hackers uploaded images of child pornography to the site, prompting the temporary deactivation of the page, according to the memorial's management.

Located about 12 miles (20 kilometers) away from the Austrian city of Linz, Mauthausen was specifically created to exterminate, by means of forced labor, the intelligentsia who opposed the Nazi regime in Germany and the countries it occupied. Around 200,000 prisoners from all over Europe passed through the camp while it was in operation, around half of whom died - beaten, gassed, starved, shot or worked to death in the nearby arms factories and granite quarries.

Willi Mernyi, head of the Mauthausen committee called the attack "simply disgusting," and Austrian Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner told reporters that her ministry was working with experts to discover the culprits behind this "sick, criminal" act as soon as possible.

"I simply cannot comprehend what sick minds stand behind such deeds," said the minister.

The hackers are thought to have carried out the attack with the anniversary of the war's end in mind. The annual celebration commemorating the liberation of the camp is set to take place on Sunday.

es/bw (AFP, KNA)