Rudolf A. Haunschmied grew up and lived in Sankt Georgen an der Gusen, Austria.
[1] In 1986 he became a founding member of Arbeitskreis für Heimat-, Denkmal- und Geschichtspflege St. Georgen (AHDG) which gave the Gusen Memorial Committee (GMC) a home until January 2008, when he was again among the founding members of the then independent Gusen Memorial Committee.
[2] He led excursions to the remnants of the camps[3] as well as study circles for years and advises students and researchers.
With Pierre Serge Choumoff of Amicale Francaise de Mauthausen (Paris) and others he organized the first local-international commemoration at Gusen in 1995 and founded the Mauthausen-Gusen Info-Pages in 1997.
From 2019 to 2021, Rudolf Haunschmied contributed as scientific advisor to the creation of virtual guides for the Mauthausen Memorial on the former Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp complex and the associated inter-spaces.