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The Quality of Mercy is a dramatization of the events surrounding the Mühlviertler Hasenjagd, a Nazi war crime that took place near Linz, in the Mühlviertel region of Upper Austria, just before the end of the Second World War. The film's original title translates as "Rabbit chase – for sheer cowardice, there is no mercy", a reference to the name given by the SS to the manhunt for the hundreds of prisoners who managed to escape from Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp. Nearly 500 tried to escape, over 300 made it to the nearby woods, and of those, just 11 managed to survive the three months until the war ended. Most were shot on the spot or beaten to death when they were found, 57 were returned to the camp. The film attracted 123,000 spectators in Austria, making it the most successful film of 1995.