A Cultural Study of Spanish Representations of the Mauthausen Concentration Camp (1940-2012)

FAIN: FB-57371-14

Sara Jean Brenneis
Amherst College (Amherst, MA 01002-2372)

My project is a monographic cultural study of Spanish representations of Mauthausen, the Nazi concentration camp. This volume provides a critical chronology of narrative fiction, film, memoir and historiography produced from the moment Spaniards began to be deported to Mauthausen in 1940 to the present day and inspired by the experiences of Spaniards detained or killed in Mauthausen during World War II. My study will be of value to scholars in the humanities because it treats the larger questions of how art represents history in the context of different political situations and how artistic representations form the tangible manifestation of a society's collective memory. Furthermore, this project delves into the circumstances surrounding the presence of Spaniards in concentration camps, information that has often been willfully overlooked or suppressed in Spain and is almost entirely absent in discourse about the Holocaust.

Associated Products

Spaniards in Mauthausen: Representations of a Nazi Concentration Camp, 1940-2015 (Book)
Title: Spaniards in Mauthausen: Representations of a Nazi Concentration Camp, 1940-2015
Author: Sara J. Brenneis
Editor: Frances Mundy
Abstract: “Spaniards in Mauthausen” is the first monograph to investigate the cultural legacy of Spaniards imprisoned and/or killed in the Nazi concentration camp Mauthausen during World War II. By examining narratives produced by or about Spanish Mauthausen survivors and victims over the past seventy years, this book provides a historical, critical, and chronological analysis of a virtually unknown body of work. These diverse accounts — encompassing letters, artwork, photographs, memoirs, historiography, fiction, film, theater, and new media — illustrate how Spaniards have become cognizant of the Spanish government’s relationship to the Nazis and its role in the victimization of Spanish nationals in Mauthausen. As political prisoners, their numbers and experiences differ significantly from the millions of Jews exterminated by Hitler, yet the Spaniards in Mauthausen were nevertheless objects of Nazi violence and witnesses to the Holocaust. Representations of the Spanish Mauthausen experience impacted Spain differently during Francisco Franco’s oppressive dictatorship (1939-1975) than they did during the country’s transition to a democracy allowing free expression. Until the late 1970s, the stories of the Spaniards in Mauthausen remained invisible inside Spain. By the 2000s, however, these accounts began to influence the movement to recover the country’s historical memory of its traumatic past. At a moment when the last Spanish survivors of Mauthausen are dying, “Spaniards in Mauthausen” addresses the urgency to comprehend their place in the history of World War II and the Holocaust, to understand how their ordeals have been represented and received over time in Spain, and to preserve their legacy.
Year: 2018
Primary URL: https://utorontopress.com/us/spaniards-in-mauthausen-2
Primary URL Description: University of Toronto Press website with the book for sale.
Access Model: print book
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9781487501334
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

The Death of Historical Memory? Javier Cercas’s El impostor versus the Legacy of Spaniards Deported to Nazi Camps (Article)
Title: The Death of Historical Memory? Javier Cercas’s El impostor versus the Legacy of Spaniards Deported to Nazi Camps
Author: Sara J. Brenneis
Abstract: Javier Cercas criticizes what he calls “the so-called memory industry” in his 2014 book, El impostor. While delving into the life story of Enric Marco, who was unmasked in 2005 as a false survivor of the Nazi concentration camp Flossenbürg, Cercas pronounces historical memory dead in Spain. This article retraces Marco’s rise to fame against the backdrop of Spain’s relevance to the Holocaust as well as seven decades of narratives by actual Spanish survivors of Nazi concentration camps published inside the country. These narratives have given increased visibility to Spanish deportees, forming a core aspect of Spain’s historical memory. Countering Cercas’s claim of morbidity, this article demonstrates that the recuperation of historical memory has moved from a grassroots movement to a legislative initiative and back again in Spain, particularly as concerns the legacy of Spanish Republicans deported to Nazi camps. Cercas’s misplaced glorification of a false survivor and his narrow focus on the recuperation of historical memory as a collective memory of the Spanish Civil War and Franco dictatorship governed by the Law of Historical Memory notwithstanding, the movement has had a trickle-down effect on the visibility of the history of Spaniards deported to Nazi camps during World War II.
Year: 2017
Access Model: Subscription
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies
Publisher: Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies

Introduction; Spain’s Mauthausen: Narratives of the Nazi Deportation of Spanish Republicans, 1946–2015 (Book Section)
Title: Introduction; Spain’s Mauthausen: Narratives of the Nazi Deportation of Spanish Republicans, 1946–2015
Author: Sara J. Brenneis
Editor: Gina Herrmann
Editor: Sara J. Brenneis
Abstract: Spain has for too long been considered peripheral to the human catastrophes of World War II and the Holocaust. This volume is the first broadly interdisciplinary, scholarly collection to situate Spain in a position of influence in the history and culture of the Second World War. Featuring essays by international experts in the fields of history, literary studies, cultural studies, political science, sociology, and film studies, this book clarifies historical issues within Spain while also demonstrating the impact of Spain's involvement in the Second World War on historical memory of the Holocaust. Many of the contributors have done extensive archival research, bringing new information and perspectives to the table, and in many cases the essays published here analyze primary and secondary material previously unavailable in English. Spain, the Second World War, and the Holocaust reaches beyond discipline, genre, nation, and time period to offer previously unknown evidence of Spain’s continued relevance to the Holocaust and the Second World War.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://utorontopress.com/9781487505707/spain-the-second-world-war-and-the-holocaust/
Primary URL Description: Publisher's website
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Book Title: Spain, the Second World War, and the Holocaust: History and Representation
ISBN: 978-1487505707

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