Conditions were poor, and along with the lack of food, exposure to cold weather and forced hard labor made survival difficult.

[1] The main purpose of Ebensee was to provide slave labor for the construction of enormous tunnels in which armament works were to be housed, safe from bombing.

Inmates were from more than 20 different national origins, including countries like Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Germany, Yugoslavia, France, Italy, Greece and Spain.

After shooting some eight prisoners while drunk, Riemer was demoted and transferred to the Gusen concentration camp post office.

[6]: 20 In an oral history interview, camp survivor Max Moneta reported that the barracks were not heated and that meals were irregular.

[7] Former prisoner Serge de Moussac also remembers that Hungarian Jews had long working hours and were abused by Ganz.

[6]: 31–32 As allied forces closed in on Nazi territories, prisoners from other camps were sent to Ebensee, and there was not enough food to feed everyone.

Commander Anton Ganz forced them to remain outside during snowy weather for almost two days, and hundreds of prisoners died of exhaustion caused by transport to the camp and of exposure.

[6]: 33 In May 1945, shooting in the distance could be heard from inside the camp, and there was a sense among prisoners that American and British forces were close at hand.

Prisoners refused and remained in their barracks; hours later some of the tunnels exploded, reputedly due to the detonation of mines.

On 5 May 1945, prisoners awoke to find that the SS had deserted Ebensee and that only elderly Germans armed with rifles were guarding the camp.

Robert B. Persinger, a member of the platoon who liberated the camp, recalled that prisoners appeared to be starving and were barely clothed.

A prisoner who spoke English, Max Garcia, showed the troops the stacks of bodies near the crematorium.

[6]: 46 In the immediate aftermath of liberation, survivors set up a cemetery for prisoners who died in the camp outside of Ebensee.

The Resistance Museum Ebensee Association created a memorial tunnel in 1994, where a display about the history of the camp existed since 1996.

In 2001, the Museum for Contemporary History Ebensee opened and includes an archive with photos and the names of the prisoners in the camp.