Panel IV: “Representations of Mauthausen at the Crossroads of Spanish Memory”

Over 7,000 Spaniards were captured as political prisoners and held in the Nazi concentration camp Mauthausen between 1940 and 1945; some 5,000 of them died in the camp. Since its liberation in 1945, Mauthausen has continued to resonate as a symbol of Spain’s historical memory – or lack thereof – of its role in World War II through a body of memoirs, documentary films and novels authored by survivors and non-survivors alike. In this presentation, in addition to providing a historical background of Spaniards in the camp, I will discuss the variety of written and cinematic representations of the Spanish experience of Mauthausen. In their evolution over the decades, these representations have become indicative of the cultural and political relevance of the Mauthausen of 1940-45 in questions of historical memory in the Spain of the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries