Tucked away in a remote part of the Austrian Alps, this unassuming construction site is the center of a controversy because of its dark past. The usually normal construction of a meat factory in the Austrian municipality of Haiming, near Innsbruck, continued to raise major questions from locals. What's the big deal? Well, Austrian pork producer Handl Tyrol plans to build a bacon and sausage factory here, on the former grounds of a Nazi forced labour camp.
During World War Two, hundreds of prisoners were made to build a dam for a hydro-electric power plant in the area. After the surrender of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, the former labor camp was cleared and remained empty until the land was acquired by Austrian power company Tiwag, which didn't care to develop the land. Recently, Tiwag approved the sale of the site to Handl Tyrol, who made plans to build a new factory as soon as possible.
However, Tiwag's sale of the controversial site to the pork producer has garnered criticism from descendants of the former landowners of the site, who say that Nazi authorities pushed them off the land. Still others question the impact on history of building over the site with the checkered past. Handl Tyrol representatives have stated that the question of the sales' legality should have been handled between the former landowners and Tiwag, and have already confirmed that they would not delay construction.
