ABSTRACT
Christmas at Mauthausen! Weihnachten! Night of solemn mood, of pagan spirits rampant. Sadness and joy combined. What emotions the season stirred in the breast of every SS> Night of infinite yearning, when the pagan soul, freed from its routine labour, gave itself to Traümerei, Sehnsucht, Seelenkleister, Weltschmerz even, for where would the world be without Nazi Kultur? For the Spaniards especially, coming from a country where the Christmas tree was unknown, the sight of the SS, side by side with German Green Kapos, singing and weeping together as they caroused beside their tree, inspired a particular revulsion. Few of the Spaniards were practising Catholics, or even Catholics, but Christmas without a Belen or Cradle of Bethlehem reminded even the most fervent atheist that in an SS camp everything was denied. God was banished. Prisoners were punished for drawing the image of Christ. Only the tree remained; the tree, but not the Tree. The tree was their link to Herminius, the mythical hero who saved all things good from the grasp of the barbaric hordes piling in from the east.
