The Spanish Holocaust

Professor Paul Preston's recent book, The Spanish Holocaust tells the story of the Francoist terror after the war ended in 1939. It catalogues the litany of murder, torture, misogyny and imprisonment as well as the enforced silence which lasted decades. It is no coincidence or surprise that he received death threats when the book was released. I heard him speak about the book at the Mitchell Library recently and bought it as a result. A riveting account of what was an alarm call for the fascism and nazism which was just around the corner in Europe. No pasaran!
The falangists were as bad as humanity can be. They disgusted and dismayed even Heinrich Himmler, who made a friendly visit to Franco’s Spain on behalf of Nazi Germany. In view of what Himmler’s regime was doing in Germany, Poland and elsewhere at the time, Preston thought hard before including the word “holocaust” in his book’s title. He stresses that he does not intend to equate what happened in Spain with the racial elimination pursued by the Nazis in the rest of continental Europe. But there were strong parallels, and in the end he could find no more suitable word.
The bones of his story are simple and well known. In January 1936 a left-wing coalition government was legally elected and formed in Spain. A cabal of Spanish colonial army officers, chiefly based in North Africa, who were already smarting from the fact that Spain had dispensed with its monarchy in 1931, decided to overthrow that government.
In July 1936, the army’s coup was only partly successful. Thanks to citizen militias, some loyal members of the Civil Guard and the military, and enormous popular support, most of Spain remained in government hands. So the Army of Africa began a ruthless campaign in its own country against its own administration and its own people, and by April 1939 its sheer force of arms – aided throughout by troops, weapons and munitions of Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy – had succeeded in overthrowing the legitimate government of Spain and establishing a military dictatorship led by Generalissimo Francisco Franco. To read more buy the book.