Francoist Spain and the Holocaust, Separating the Truth and the Lies

Sara Brenneis and Gina Hermann, professors at Amherst and the University of Oregon, respectively, have collected an extensive, if not always satisfying set of essays from an interdisciplinary perspective about Spain’s role during World War II, antisemitism, and the Holocaust.

Contributors are experts in history, film studies, sociology, cultural studies, literary studies, and political science. Altogether there are thirty-five chapters by thirty-five authors. The editors divided the essays into nine common themed sections – legacies of antisemitism in Spain, Spain and the fates of the Jewish communities, Spanish exiles in France, Spanish Republicans in Nazi camps, propaganda, The Blue Division, Nazis in Spain, the Holocaust in Contemporary Spanish and Ladino Culture, and Holocaust Appropriations in Spain. Prior to the themed sections, the editors provide an introduction or prologue – a general overview of Spain’s role during the war and relationship to the Holocaust. Haim Avni wrote a second useful introduction and summary of Jews and Spaniards at meeting points of their histories during the Nazi era. Both are essential readings for understanding the scope and intention of this work.

One of the more intriguing chapters is on the Blue Division by Boris Korale. While Spain did not declare war on the side of the Axis Powers and did not declare war on the Soviet Union, Franco embraced the crusade against communism. He sent 45,000 “volunteers” from the Spanish Army and Falange to fight with the Germans from 1941-44, costing 5,000 killed. Troops of the Blue Division did not participate in the Holocaust and seemed oblivious to the mass murder of Jews but shared Spanish antisemitism. Several chapters by Robert Coale and Genevieve Dreyfus-Armand detail the less well-known story of the role of Spanish Republican exiles in France fighting with the French Resistance or organizing their own anti-Nazi guerrilla groups an issue that deserves greater attention. Several chapters cover the Spanish Republicans sent to Nazi concentration camps, like the women sent to Ravensbruck, and the deplorable fate of the men who ended up in Mauthausen, where only 30% survived, briefly mentioned by Alain Resnais in his famous short documentary, on the concentration camps, Night and Fog.

Nowhere in Spain is there an academic department that focuses on the Holocaust, ironically reflecting the indifference of Franco to the mass murder of Jews. Belatedly, Spain in 2008 finally included a requirement to cover the Holocaust in social studies education. While Franco later took credit for accepting Jewish refugees during the war that was a gross exaggeration intended to placate Western governments. Part of the problem is that authors in the study disagree on how many Jews made it to Spain, varying from 13,000 to 30,000. One of the shortcomings of this book is the lack of accurate figures on the Jewish refugees. Almost none could legally remain in Spain but had to move on to a more permanent safe haven. During the early stages of the war, Franco did not allow international Jewish service agencies to operate in Spain, finally relenting in 1943 permitting the Joint Distribution Committee. It would have been useful if the editors included accounts by survivors about their experiences seeking refuge in Spain.

As the authors document, Franco showed hostility to the small Jewish community in Spain and did not rush to save Jews with Spanish passports or help the larger Sephardic Jewish community in Nazi occupied Europe. Partially under the influence of the very antisemitic Spanish Catholic Church, Franco outlawed Jewish institutions and synagogues ---no toleration of any public display of Judaism or Jewish identity by Spanish Jews. Spain did not adopt Nazi racial antisemitism but retained traditional Catholic antisemitism. This is a point other studies of the Holocaust have not mentioned, the antisemitic actions of the Franco government during World War II. Once again, this monumental work would have been improved by accounts of the experiences of Spanish Jews during the war. How did Jews observe Jewish religious practices when Franco’s government forbade them? This exhaustive volume did not answer this question.

Much of the actual activity to save Jewish lives in Nazi occupied Europe came from the independent action of Spanish diplomats, not the Spanish government as the essay by Jose Antonio Lisbona documents. Several Spanish diplomats, such as Sebastian Romero Radigales, Consul General in Athens, Greece, in 1943-45, are recognized at Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations. Six chapters in this section on Spain and the Jews during the Holocaust demonstrate a reluctant willingness to save fewer than a 1,000 Jews, but diplomats acting without authorization from the Spanish government protected or saved probably 9,000 Jews. In theory, the Spanish government, on several occasions, as recently as June 2015, offered citizenship to descendants of Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain in 1492, but this meant little during World War II. Franco did nothing to stop the mass murder of about 90-percent of the Sephardic Jews in Salonica, Greece, the largest Sephardic community in Europe, or smaller communities in Athens, Holland, France, Yugoslavia, and Italy. The authors make clear Franco’s indifference to the fate of Jews, whether Ashkenazi or Sephardic.

This comprehensive work provides much needed insights into Spain’s policies during World War II and the plight of Jews and refugees in wartime Spain. This work is recommended for readers interested in the Second World War, the Holocaust, the plight of Spanish refugees in France, antisemitism, or Spanish history.

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Note: Spain, the Second World War, and the Holocaust is also available in e-editions.

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