| |
|
927 ON THE TRAIN TO HELL
Montse Armengou y Ricard Belis
SPAIN 2004, Beta SP, 65 min.
SINOPSIS
August 24, 1940. A freight train crammed with 927 Spaniards who had
sought refuge in France after the Spanish Civil War pulled out of
Angoulême station in southern France. Hitler's troops had just conquered
France and split the country in two. The refugees thought they were being
taken to unoccupied Vichy, France. But they soon realized they were traveling
north. The final stop - a small Austrian village called Mauthausen. It was also
the name of a nearby concentration camp. The refugees were herded off the
trains. Men and boys over the age of 13 were taken away. It was the beginning
of an appalling tragedy. Of the 470 people taken into the camp, 87% of them
died there.
The remaining 457, women and young children,
were loaded back onto the train. There was no time
for goodbyes. After a hellish 18-day journey, they
found themselves once again in Franco's Spain,
from which they had fled at the end of the Civil War
and where they suffered imprisonment and persecution.
They were denied any news of their loved
ones in Mauthausen.
The Spaniards were the first to arrive at Mauthausen and were put to work building
the camp installations. One of the prisoners, Francesc Boix, was later to
play a key role at the Nuremberg trials. His
secretly-taken photos provided rrefutable evidence
of Nazi war crimes.
This was the first train in western Europe to carry
deported civilians, entire families, to a Nazi extermination
camp. The report also reveals a less wellknown
fact - the Spanish authorities' complicity in
the slaughter of its citizens by the Nazis. Four
times, the Germans asked the Spanish government
for instructions regarding the fate of the "2,000 Red Spaniards interned at
Angoulême". Ramon Serrano Suñer, Franco's son-in-law, was foreign minister at
the time and an enthusiastic supporter of the Nazi
cause. The Spanish authorities never deigned to
reply, even though they knew that half of the internees
were already in Mauthausen. A note scribbled
in the margin of the Spanish documents simply
says, "It is not in our interest to do anything".
Serrano Suñer's meeting with Hitler sealed the fate
of the Spanish republicans at the Mauthausen
camp.
The story of the train from Angoulême has remained forgotten and silenced
together with those of so many other victims of the Franco dictatorship. This
documentary at last puts the record straight. It has
been easy to forget the Spanish victims of Nazi concentration
camps given the staggering number of
Jews and other people who were murdered. To
make matters worse, the few Spanish survivors
couldn't return to Spain and those who eventually
did, couldn't talk.
Perhaps an explanation for the all-too-frequent
recent outbursts by neo-Nazi and fascist groups should be sought in this silence
and ignorance. Perhaps the lack of monuments in homage to the victims of
the dictatorship is symptomatic. Perhaps we should
see that a country that doesn't learn from its history
may be condemned to repeat it.
Some thirty survivors are interviewed. The program
was filmed in France, Austria, and Spain. Over
twenty Spanish and foreign archives were consulted
in making the documentary
A report by Montse Armengou
Filming director: Ricard Belis
Cameraman: Walter Ojeda
ENG: Eduard Quesada
Research: Montse Bailac
Production: Muntsa Tarrés and Meritxell Ribas
Editing: M. Josep Tubella
Music: Albert Carlota
Audio post-production: Carles García
WITNESSES
Ramiro Santiesteban, José Alcubierre, Jesús Ramos, Pablo Escribano, Jesús Tello, Luisa Ramos, Felix Quesada, Joaquim Valcells
ARCHIVES CONSULTED
Agencia EFE Archives Départementales de la Charente. Angoulême Archives M. Puiverd Archives du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères Archivo General de la Administración Archivo del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores. Arxiu Històric de la Ciutat Arxiu Municipal de Castellar del Vallès. Fons sobre la Deportació 1939?1945 Arxiu Nacional de Catalunya Biblioteca Nacional. Madrid Centre Historique des Archives Nationales. Filmoteca Española Gaumont. INA International Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis ITN MOMA Museu de la Résistance. Angulema Museu d'Història de Catalunya NARA Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Amicale de Mauthausen. Barcelona Amicale Nationale des Déportés et Familles de Disparus de Mauthausen Association d'Immigrés Espagnols à Angoulême Geneviève Dreyfus-Armand Fotoarchiv der KZ-Gedenkstätte Mauthausen. Stephan Matyus Institut Cartogràfic de Catalunya Universitat de Lleida. Biblioteca d'Humanitats Col·legi de Periodistes de Catalunya Alain Léger Rosa Torán Joan M. Thomàs Manuel Ros Agudo Margarita Sala Francisco Redondo Montserrat Besses Sylvia Halm Enric Marco Jordi Moliné Josep M. Pérez Molinos Andreas Stock Blas Mínguez Eva Artesona Teresa Muntañola Neus Català Antònia García Joan Baptista Nos Fibla Isabel Blas Mariano Constante Dolores Martínez Maza Dolores Lara Rafael Borràs Sílvia Cueto Marta Gammer
|
|
|
