Showing Spaniards in the Holocaust : Mauthausen, the horror of the Danube by David Wingeate Pike

This important new work focuses on the experience of the large Spanish contingent within the Mauthausen concentration camp, one of the least known but most terrible of the Nazi camps. Among the hundreds of thousands of prisoners who entered Mauthausen were 7,000 Spanish Republicans who had fought in the Civil War and found refuge in France, only to be arrested by the Germans in the French collapse of 1940. Their story represents a microcosm of the experience of national prisoner communities, and 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. This book is the first full-length account in English of the horrors of Mauthausen. It includes not only what the Spaniards endured but what they witnessed, such as the treatment of the Jews and the mass breakout of Soviet officers in the Death Block. The book concludes with the first account in English of the Battle of Austria and the assault of the US 'Thunderbolt' Division, which ended with the liberation of Mauthausen. Spaniards in the Holocaust makes an outstanding contribution to the literature of the Holocaust. It also presents a wealth of material of vital interest to historians of both the Second World War, and the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath. _ _ _ _ _ _