ABSTRACT

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.

part I|41 pages

The SS archipelago

chapter 1|6 pages

Captives in the Channel Islands

chapter 2|2 pages

Deported to the Stalags

chapter 3|3 pages

The Spaniards and the KZ universe

chapter 4|4 pages

Classification and stratification

chapter 5|4 pages

Opposing programmes

Extenuation versus extermination

chapter 6|7 pages

Everyday life in the KZ

chapter 8|10 pages

The survival of the evidence

part II|77 pages

Mauthausen, Category Three

chapter 1|6 pages

The arrival

chapter 2|9 pages

The outer circle

The SS staff

chapter 3|3 pages

The inner circle

The Kapos

chapter 4|6 pages

The first Spanish contingents

chapter 5|6 pages

International friction and the brothel

chapter 6|4 pages

The Spaniards as seen by others

chapter 7|4 pages

The paradox of entertainment

chapter 8|6 pages

The Revier, antechamber of death

chapter 9|4 pages

The quarry and the 186 steps

chapter 10|2 pages

Local Kommandos

chapter 11|14 pages

The Nebenlager

chapter 13|8 pages

Escape and the SS response

part III|95 pages

Survival

chapter 1|4 pages

The nucleus of a resistance

chapter 3|11 pages

A Spaniard enters the photo lab

chapter 4|4 pages

Franco's consulate in Vienna

chapter 5|2 pages

A marriage at Auschwitz

chapter 6|5 pages

Holy Night

chapter 7|2 pages

A visit to Melk

chapter 8|4 pages

An international committee forms

chapter 9|4 pages

Atrocities against Allied prisoners

chapter 10|5 pages

The Resistance forms a military branch

chapter 12|5 pages

Incidents in the photo lab

chapter 13|7 pages

The Soviet break-out from the Death Block

chapter 14|7 pages

Mauthausen as the terminus of evacuation

chapter 15|7 pages

Growing fears of a general massacre

chapter 16|5 pages

The evacuation of the last Nebenlager

chapter 17|4 pages

The photos and the Poschacher boys

chapter 18|8 pages

The departure of the SS

part IV|96 pages

Liberation

chapter 1|6 pages

The Soviet assault from the east

chapter 2|8 pages

The American assault from the west

chapter 3|7 pages

The liberation of Gusen and Mauthausen

chapter 4|13 pages

The night of 5-6 May

chapter 5|11 pages

The return of the Americans to Mauthausen

chapter 6|6 pages

Ebensee

The last liberation

chapter 7|3 pages

The American—Soviet link-up

chapter 8|7 pages

The final German surrender

chapter |20 pages

Epilogue