It's not enough to say it was informative or moving. It wasn't even an experience that I would consider "good". While of course the trip was very educational and it did move me to a degree, that wasn't what stuck with me after I got on the bus back to Vienna.
What stuck with me was a strong sense of discomfort.
It was discomforting to learn about institutionalized genocide. It was discomforting to learn about the dehumanization of the prisoners. It was discomforting to come to realize that for many people at the time, this horrific act of brutality and injustice was acceptable. Maybe (and probably) it wasn't enjoyed by everyone, but the Austrian populace accepted it nonetheless.
I say it left me with a deep "discomfort" instead of "horror" or "sadness" because while I was walking around Mauthausen I wasn't trying to place myself in the shoes of the prisoners there and empathize with them.
I don't think anyone who wasn't there will ever be truly able to understand or empathize with those who were.
I instead put myself in the shoes of the citizens of Mauthausen.
I placed myself as a citizen of the Third Reich in Mauthausen when the camp was being run and asked myself, "How would I react if I knew of the atrocities going on inside the camp?"
What left me feeling uncomfortable was the realization that I would more-than-likely trust the judgement of the authorities running the camp than I would trust myself. If the guards were people I knew and liked, if the Nazi government had improved things for my area, if I had been raised antisemitic for my whole life, I could see why some people would do there best to ignore and not think about the violence they are condoning.
This doesn't mean that I'm at all justifying the indifference and moral failure of many people at that time. It just means that I understand how something as terrible as the Holocaust can become a reality. Not through pure malice and bigotry, but though indifference and blind acceptance.
What left me truly uncomfortable after visiting Mauthausen was the realization of how truly real and possible the Holocaust was. It wasn't a rare and unfortunate series of events directed by one person meant to embody pure evil and cruelty. It is an aspect of a very real and very dangerous aspect of humanity as a whole.
If the world isn't careful, that aspect of humanity could easily show itself again.
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