Spaniards in mauthausen: Almeria memorial

[Maxim Chorny]

SPANIARDS IN MAUTHAUSEN: ALMERIA MEMORIAL

The fate of the Spanish Jews as well as of tens of thousands of Spanish refugees is generally omitted in the historical narration of WWII. It took me two years to visit Almeria and its ‘Monumento a las Víctimas Almerienses de Mauthausen’ after a journey to Mauthausen in 2017 and another three years to research and write about it and share it now in 2023. This exhaustingly detailed material is based on dozens of books on the Holocaust, Mauthausen, and the Spanish Civil War, the Vichy regime in France, Franco’s biographies, and personal testimonies of the Spanish survivors of the genocide.

If you appreciate this article and my research, please share it with others, leave comments and feedback, and let us remember history and people before us.

Spaniards in Mauthausen: Holocaust Memorial in Almeria

[Aldo]

Thank you for posting your in depth article about a little known aspect of the "Guerra Civil" It certainly is eye opening.

[TabsTabs1964]

A very documented and interesting article.
Sadly, the fate of several thousand Spaniards led them to Mauthausen. Few survived.
I was lucky to meet one.

Regards
Santi

[Kalilaska118]

I can't understand what do Spanish refugees have common with Jews and Holocaust..

[Larry C]

I can't understand what do Spanish refugees have common with Jews and Holocaust..

Before this Thread goes off the rails ....Kali ...you need to research deeper into the reason why Hitler had removed the Jewish people and also those who were Jewish mix and also those who were other cultures that were deemed non Germanic.

This thread is being monitored.
Moderator Carl will be along shortly.

Regards Larry

[Ben Evans]

On Nights so watching Larry

[Maxim Chorny]

Thank you for your good words. For some time I had doubts about this particular material and whether I should write and share it, but like the old wisdom says: we learn by doing.

[Maxim Chorny]

To 'Kalilaska118'.

I have included a particular section devoted to the fate of the Spanish Jews, as well as passages about Franco's policy against Jews, as well as the differentiation of different types of prisoners in Mauthausen, their life expectancy, and particularly a correlation between Jews and Spaniards. So, you should probably read the article first.

[PierreN]

wow, nice extended story. started to read , very interesting. It can be confusing ( not the story ) that in Spain they have a "difference" between Campo de concentración and Campo de exterminio ... the first are in a way the prisoners of war camps and the second one are the extermination camps like auschwitz and the others... So the name concentration camp got the "wrong" explanation during time "thanks" to the German extermination camps.... which does not mean that life in concentration camps in Spain was a holiday camp..... not at all.... My wife ( spanish ) told me that also people who try to eascape from to Nazi's in the North of Europe at a time used the Spain route to get to the UK. In Spain many were arrested and put in Spanish Concentration camps... ( and who knows ended up in German Extermination camps ;-( )

[TabsTabs1964]

Effectively, that's right. I live in a small town less than ten kilometers from the border with Portugal.
During those years, hundreds of Jews from Germany, Austria, France... who had arrived and crossed Spain from east to west, were helped by good people to cross the river that forms the border between Spain and Portugal in another small nearby town, called Ribadavia.

Regards
Santi