Costa del Sol
Málaga remembers its dead in the Nazi concentration camps
By m.p.
Dec 12, 2007 - 10:26 PM

The provincial government in Málaga has paid tribute to the malagueños who escaped into France at the end of the Civil War only to lose their lives in one of the most infamous concentration camps of Nazi Germany, with a monument inscribed with the names of all 148 who fled from Málaga to die in the Austrian camps of Mauthausen. The monument is the work of Rafael Alvarado, and was officially unveiled in the gardens of the Diputación Civic Centre in Málaga on Tuesday, in an emotional ceremony where the families of those who died were there to remember the relatives they lost.

Most of the malagueños died in nearby Gusen: one of them was the father of José López from Teba, who was just one year old when his family heard his father had been transferred to the camps. La Opinión de Málaga said they only heard years later that he died in Gusen.

The Diputación President, Salvador Pendón, said at the ceremony that the monument, entitled ‘Shadows of Light,’ aims to symbolise ‘the triumph of memory over oblivion.’ He said the camps have passed into history as a symbol of the cruelty of mankind.

Only 2,000 of the 7,000 Spanish prisoners interned in Mauthausen – 1,100 of them from Andalucía - survived the harsh conditions of slave labour, torture, and starvation in the camps.