The [parafascist] period was a less pleasurable experience for those who were defeated. Half a million Republican soldiers were interned in concentration camps (Rodrigo 2005). Of these, 90,000 died of starvation, disease or torture.
The [parafascist] régime established over a hundred concentration camps, forced labour camps, prisons and detention centres. The dictatorship [of the bourgeoisie] worked out a programme aimed at transforming Republicans into law‐abiding citizens of the New Spain (Gómez Bravo 2009). This included different levels of punishment, all of which were permeated with religious ideology.
[…]
Ditches were dug to delimit the camp, but seemed to have been largely symbolic: in some places they were only 20 cm deep. The latrines were located in a conspicuous place, visible from everywhere in the camp and the surrounding area (Figure 8, № 1, north east of the barracks).
These took the form of a simple irregular ditch dug through the hard shale, 30–50cm deep and c 2m [sic] wide (Figure 9). According to the orders issued by the concentration camp service, latrine ditches should be two metres deep and one metre wide (López Rodríguez 2006: 189); the wide shallow form they actually took would have made them totally unhygienic, spreading an awful smell through the camp and increasing the chances of disease in an undernourished population.
The most abundant item found in the latrines and perimeter ditches was the tin can: 90% of which were of either tuna or sardines. There were many potsherds, a lid from a tin pot and several military mess tins, which show the military character of these institutions. Evidence for medicines was plentiful: 22 ampoules, two bottles of peroxide, a tube of antiseptic cream, and many fragments of medicine bottles, some of them for intestinal diseases.
[…]
The archaeological investigation endorses surviving accounts from a type of place notorious for its inhuman repression. The daily diet was confined to a single tin of sardines shared by two or more prisoners, combined with a piece of bread and a watery soup.
Only 18 tiny fragments of bones have been identified, confirming that the inmates had virtually no access to meat—as opposed to internment camps of other nations (cf. Demuth 2009: 175). If the number of those who starved to death was not greater, this was due to the fact that many received food from relatives (in clay and tin pots as the ones we found). Lack of family could equal a death sentence.
Testimonies collected from former camp inmates describe the latrines as an instrument of “moral destruction” (Lafuente 2002: 148) as well as infection. The abundance of medicines is seemingly at odds with a population of mostly young adult people who should be the least affected by illness: but it was precisely the condition of imprisonment that favoured contagion.
When prisoners were treated like animals, showing a skill by doing specialized work was a way of counteracting the prevailing ideology. Historians have studied similar tactics of resistance, but they have invariably focused on artists and intellectuals (Agramunt 2005).
(Emphasis added.)
Likewise worth noting is how our labor was so important to Spain’s reconstruction.
Lying behind the contemporary landscape of Spain, with its roads, railways, airports and dams, is a decade of forced labour. Thousands of political prisoners redeemed part of their prison terms by working on public and private infrastructure, an anonymous effort that has passed almost unnoticed (Lafuente 2002).
Since 2006, archaeologists have been investigating a forced labour camp in Bustarviejo, near Madrid (Falquina et al. 2010), where between 1944 and 1952 hundreds of political prisoners laboured in the construction of a tunnel and railway bridge in a mountainous area. The site where the workers lived has survived untouched, with its barracks, staff houses, stalls, quarries and the railway itself, now abandoned (Figure 11).
The main building had a filthy communal latrine and large communal bedrooms where the inmates had to sleep crammed on the floor. However, in general the situation was not as harsh as in the concentration camps: after all, this was the last step in the process of rehabilitating the prisoners.
One of the most interesting results has to do with a story that has virtually disappeared from collective memory and from the history books. This concerns the women and children who shared the fate of the vanquished Republican men by following them to their places of imprisonment and lived on the outskirts of the labour camps.
While the presence of families was known and is mentioned by some (e.g. Lafuente 2002: 127–128), no research has been conducted on their life conditions. These aspects were eloquently manifested in the archaeological remains of Bustarviejo camp.
An entire village was recorded, consisting of huts made by the inmates and their relatives. The huts were tiny, usually 4–5 m2—like prison cells (Figure 12). They were built with stone debris from the quarries and had low roofs made with brush. Roofs, walls and floors were reinforced with mortar.
The inmates no doubt obtained the cement from the camp authorities, but the quantity was so small that they had to add a large amount of sand. The huts had no windows: all light came from a small door. They had a hearth inside for warmth and for cooking.
Beds and benches were made in stone as well, and they were originally covered with straw or brush. In the cold winters of the Madrid sierra, living in these shacks must have been a terrible experience.
The camp had no barbed wire and all four sentry boxes face outwards, that is, they were devised to detect an external attack by guerrilla fighters, not to control the prisoners. The similar layout and size of the huts suggest some control or consent by authority.
Having the relatives close to the inmates was advantageous to the regime for several reasons: they were supported by the prisoners, who received some money for their extra work at the camp and for each relative they had to feed; prisoners thus worked more hours to earn money for their families.
Relatives also helped to reinsert prisoners into the social life of the New State—where the Catholic family had an outstanding rôle to play—while at the same time being stigmatized and punished themselves.
Finally, they provided free surveillance. There were escapes from labour camps, but most of the time by young, single persons. Who would have fled leaving wife and children behind? This was a most effective deterrent.
Events that happened today (July 31):
1884: Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, Fascist sympathizer, was born.
1887: Hans Freyer, head of the German Institute for Culture in Budapest from 1938 to 1944, was unfortunately born.
1932: The NSDAP won more than 38% of the vote in German elections.
1941: Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Axis official Hermann Göring ordered SS General Reinhard Heydrich to ‘submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired Final Solution of the Jewish question.’ Meanwhile, the Battle of Smolensk concluded with the Third Reich capturing about 300,000 Red Army prisoners.
1945: Pierre Laval, the fugitive former leader of Vichy France, surrendered to the Allies in Austria.
1980: Ernst Pascual Jordan, Fascist theoretical and mathematical physicist, expired.
Their memory will forever live on and will be avenged one day.
