In the concentration camp of Mauthausen, located in the Austrian Alps, at least 7,500 Republican deportees ended in the Second World War, of whom more than a hundred were Basque. Two-thirds failed to survive the tragedy, due to hunger, disease, unbearable work, torture and indiscriminate killings.

After 75 years, a documentary has brought to the screen the experiences of those deportees and shows that the Franco regime was very aware of the fate that Spanish Republicans were going to have. According to The Last Spaniards of Mauthausen and the rest of the Nazi camps, carried out by the journalist of Maldonado Carlos Hernández, the German Embassy in Spain asked more than once what to do with the Republicans who were captured in France. Response from Franco: “He didn’t care.”

Some of these deportees were transferred from Angulema to Mauthausen, known as Convoy 927. Unlike the other deportees captured on the war front, all of these families lived and worked in the French city in exile. The men went down in the concentration camp and transferred children and women under fourteen to Hendaia by train, to surrender them to the Francoists. In particular, eleven people remained in Mauthausen.

These efforts were made by the Minister of Government of Spain, Ramón Serrano Suñer, married to Francisco Franco, to whom the German embassy addressed, informing of the “reds” that were in his hands. Argentine lawyer Sophie Thonon-Wesfreid had filed a complaint against him for scientific documents demonstrating her guilt, but Serrano Suñer died in 2003.

In the documentary, Benito Bermejo, a historian who has researched the case of Mauthausen, speaks: “Serrano Suñer was in Berlin and held a meeting with the main people responsible for this type of issue. That’s more than just chance,” he says.

ARGIA Report and Cover

On 5 May, it will be 75 years since the liberation of the Mauthausen camp by the Allied troops. ARGIA has offered this week’s home cover and main story to the “forgotten story” of the Basque deportees transferred to the Nazi camps. According to a last study, 253 people were deported in Álava, Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa and Navarra. But given the global vision of Euskal Herria, there were at least 600, to which must be added the deportees of Lapurdi, Nafarroa Beherea and Zuberoa.

Each year an emotional and multitudinous event is held in the place where the concentration camp was, but this year it has been suspended due to the COVID-19 crisis. On 10 May, however, a virtual tribute will be paid to all victims, organised by the Austrian Committee of MKÖ Mauthausen.

In the Basque Country, Sare Antifaxista, Amical Mauthausen and the La Ilusion de Orereta association, among others, will remember this very important date: “Today more than ever, because of the situation we have in the world, in the face of social and environmental collapse, as well as in the face of the rise of the extreme right and inequalities, we must reclaim the spirit of those deported,” the note states.