Monday, 22nd June 2015

Hi, I'm Minerva!

Today in Social Sciences we have watched a documentary about the concentration camp of Mauthausen. It is about 80 minutes, so we have stayed for two hours in the classroom.

Source:http://www.huffingtonpost.es/2015/05/05/mauthausen-liberacion_n_7212326.html

During the documentary, some Spanish people who survived in Mauthausen talked about all they lived there. They talked about the things they saw, what they ate and the stories they lived there until they were released. 

They were sent there because they were captured in France, where they were exiled after the Civil War in Spain. They were identified with a triangle with an S inside it.

Source: http://www.heraldo.es/noticias/comunicacion/adios_vida_rescata_los_recuerdos_los_presos_aragoneses_mauthausen.html

During the documentary we can see all the horrors committed there. At first it was bad for the Spaniards to stay there, but when the senior officers visited the camp and they knew they were Spanish against the government of Spain, they ordered to be merciless with them.

They worked in quarries all the day. They had to break the rocks and then, go up with them through a long stair. 

 Source:http://www.abc.es/fotos-toledo/20140131/imagenes-horror-1611861614448.html

Source: http://negativosparalahistoria.blogspot.com.es/2013_01_01_archive.html

We have been talking for a long time about what  we would have done if we had the opportunity of punishing the Nazis. All of us agree in the same thing; we would have treated them as they treated the people in the camps. Paqui has said that if we would have done this, we would be like them. She has said that she would have sent them to live with the people they hate so they could saw that they were similar.

I knew that the concentration camps were the selfsame hell, but I was wrong. They were worse. I couldn't even imagine they were like the video shown and I can't even imagine living there for years. I'm sure I couldn't live there not even for a week or a month.

Seeing your friends dying or smelling everyday the odor of the bodies being burnt is enough to be traumatized for the rest of your life.

I see this and for me, it's impossible to think that this ocurred just 70 years ago. It's striking how the human being can be, how can we hurt each other only because we think in a different way.

I think we should learntabout the history, because a lot of these things are repetitions from the past.

Despite all the wars that have happened during the history, I think this is the bloodiest, the cruelest and senseless one up to this moment.

For me, the most emotional part of the video is when the survivors told us how was the entrance of the American troops in the camp and how happy they were.

 Source: http://www.eldiario.es/el-holocausto-espa%C3%B1ol/gusen-mauthausen-nazi-deportado-franco-suner-himmler-hitler_6_349325071.html

Source: http://vidaytiemposdeljuezroybean.blogspot.com.es/2015/05/campandas-de-la-historia-47-la.html

"Los Españoles antifascistas saludan a las fuerzas liberadoras"

Here you have the video if you want to watch it:

I hope you like it. 

P.S.: If you want to read a book about this, I have found this one:  

Los últimos españoles de Mauthausen, Carlos Hernández de Miguel.

Here you have the synopsis: 

http://www.edicionesb.com/catalogo/libro/los-ultimos-espanoles-de-mauthausen_3401.html

Hope you have a good summer!!