ABSTRACT
This chapter provides Jorge Semprun's political activity prior to his deportation to Buchenwald in December 1943. It focuses on the period he spent as a concentration camp prisoner and its immediate political aftermath. The administration of Buchenwald was unusual in the Nazi concentration camp system in that the inmate functionaries appointed by the SS were usually Communists. The chapter provides an historical and political account of Semprun's experience in Buchenwald and of his post-war work as a political militant which he pursued from his return to France in April 1945 until the early 1960s. Politics were a constant topic of familial discussion and Semprun and his siblings received didactic 'explanations' of Spanish political history and current events from their father. Politics was not only an ideological position for Semprun but a path of praxis with vital and bloody consequences in the world.
