Spaniards in the Holocaust

This important work focuses on the experience of the large Spanish contingent within the Mauthausen concentration camp, one of the least known but most terrible camps in Nazi Germany. Refugees from the repercussions of the Civil War, 7,000 Spanish Republicans were arrested in France by the invading Nazis in the collapse of 1940. A microcosm of the experience of national prisoner communities, their story possesses a unique historical value. No other national group succeeded in placing its members in all the key clerical positions in the SS administration, and no other group managed to hide and save all its basic records. Vilified by Franco and condemned by Hitler, their story makes an outstanding contribution to the literature of the holocaust.

David Wingeate Pike

Part I: The SS Archipelago1. Captives in the Channel Islands2. Deported to the Stalags3. The Spaniards and the KZ Universe4. Classification and Stratification5. Opposing Programmes: Extenuation versus Extermination6. Everyday Life in the KZ7. Oranienburg, Buchenwald and Mauthausen Compared8. The Survival of EvidencePart II: Mauthausen, Category Three1. The Arrival2. The Outer Circle: the SS Staff3. The Inner Circle: the Kapos4. The First Spanish Contingents5. International Friction and the Brothel6. The Spaniards as Seen by Others7. The Paradox of Entertainment8. The Revier, Antechamber of Death9. The Quarry and the 186 Steps10. Local Kommandos11. The Aussenkommandos12. Schloss Hartheim13. Escape and the SS ResponsePart III: Survival1. The Nucleus of a Resistance2. A Spaniard Enters the Central Administration Office3. A Spaniard Enters the Photo Lab4. Franco's Consulate in Vienna5. A Marriage at Auschwitz6. Holy Night7. A Visit to Melk8. An International Commitee Forms9. Atrocities Against Allied Prisoners10. The Resistance Forms a Military Branch11. Reds and Blues Replace the Greens and Blacks12. Incidents in the Photo Lab13. The Soviet Breakout from the Death Block14. Mauthausen as the Terminus of Evacuation15. Growing Fears of a General Massacre16. The Evacuation of the Last Aussenkommandos17. The Photos and the Poschacher Boys18. The Departure of the SSPart IV: Liberation1. The Soviet Assault from the East2. The American Assault from the West3. The Liberation of Mauthausen4. The Night of 5-6 May5. The Return of the Americans to Mauthausen6. Ebensee: the Last Liberation7. The American-Soviet Linkup8. The Final German Surrender9. Punishment and Impunity for the SS Criminals