Lenzing is a small town of approximately 5,000 residents, three kilometers north of Lake Attersee in Austria, It is located in the Upper Austrian part of the Salzkammergut.

From the Bronze Age, an arm spiral was found in Pichlwang, bowl head needles and fibulae in Pettighofen and an axe in Reibersdorf.

Remains of buildings and coins from the Roman period were found on the present-day industrial site of the Lenzing AG, as well as clay urns in Gallaberg.

In 1891, the industrialist Emil Hamburger founded a paper factory in Pettighofen, a forerunner of today's Lenzing AG.

In November 1944, the first transport of 500 women from Auschwitz came to Lenzing to work in the newly opened local subcamp of Mauthausen concentration camp which was located in the Lenzinger suburb of Pettighofen.

In the winter of January 1945, a group of prisoners were severely injured when a train carrying supplies to the camp derailed.

The SS staff fled after Lagerführerin Schmidt gave a speech to the surviving women as to not "dishonor them".