Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Mauthausen, the duty of remembering

As Enrique didn´t write the journal, I´m going to include some information about what we saw in class yesterday. The documentary is called El deber de recordar (The duty of remembering) and it was produced by a La 2 TV program called Línea 900 in 2000. It tells the story of 8 Spanish fighters against Franco and Hitler, who were confined in Mauthausen concentration camp during World War 2. The survivors who appeared in the documentary were Francesc Comellas, Antoni Roig, Joan de Diego, Francisco Batiste, Josep Egea, Mariano Constante, Manuel Alfonso and Ramón Milà. Only Manuel Alfonso and Ramón Milà are still alive. The documentary explains about the hard conditions the prisoners had to put up with, the countless ways of killing the Nazis used and how the survivors managed to remain alive until the camp release on the 5th May 1945. It´s a story of horror and humiliation, but also tells about resistance and solidarity, values no one should forget. 

Here you have the complete documentary:



This is a map of all the forced labour and extermination camps the Nazis created in Germany and the territories they occupied: 


Source: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/es/media_nm.php?ModuleId=10005196&MediaId=354

And these are some links to learn more about Mauthausen: 

- Information about the structure of the camp and pictures on Remember.org: 

http://www.remember.org/camps/mauthausen/index.html

- Information about Mauthausen in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: 

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/es/article.php?ModuleId=10005196

- Brief story of Mauthausen on the Holocaust Research Project: 

http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/mauthausen.html

- Photographs of the life and death at Mauthausen: 

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/mauthpictoc.html

- Mauthausen Concentration Camp official website: 

http://en.mauthausen-memorial.at/

- Report about three of the last Spanish Mauthausen survivors, appeared on El País some weeks ago: 

http://cultura.elpais.com/cultura/2012/05/24/actualidad/1337863342_182744.html

2 comments:

Enrique Vázquez said...

Hello Paqui!

I like a lot this documentary! Here in my house, my mother and my father has also seen this, and this weekend I will show it to my brother.

Bye

Paqui Pérez Fons said...

Hello Enrique,

I´m happy that you´ve all liked it. I think this is one of the best documentaries I ´ve ever seen about the camps, because it clearly shows what life (and death) was like there. And the story of the photographs is very moving. I have a book about the photographer, Francisco Boix, with all those horrifying, but important pictures.
These are facts we shouldn´t forget.

Have a nice summer.