Catalan delegation commemorates 1,400 Catalan prisoners at 79th anniversary of Mauthausen concentration camp liberation

A Catalan delegation participated in the commemorative events for the 79th anniversary of the liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. 

Between the millions of victims there were approximately 1,400 Catalans imprisoned and killed, most of them were exiled after the Spanish civil war. 

Since 2017 there has been a commemorative plaque for the Catalans who fell victim to the camp. 

"Memory is the future. Today's Europe is also built on the experience of massacres like the one experienced in Mauthausen. It is our duty to give meaning to the sacrifice made by the brave men and women who died here," Catalonia's Central Europe delegate, Krystyna Schreiber, said during her speech. 

"Civil courage is key. Today more than ever. For you, for us, for our sons and daughters, we keep building bridges, we keep defending hope. Perhaps this is the highest honor we can dedicate to the men and women to whom we pay tribute today," she added. 

Schreiber also talked about how the situation in Europe is becoming worse, with wars 900 kilometers from Mauthausen in Gaza and Ukraine as well as "the rise of fascism within democracy itself, well disguised but very resistant." 

The commemorative day was completed by an international ceremony, during which the Catalan delegation laid flowers, with other delegations from all over the world, to remember the victims of Nazism.

Mauthausen concentration camp 

Mauthausen, built during World War II, was one of the largest Nazi concentration camp complexes. Some 200,000 people were deported to the camp, of which only 80,000 survived. 

Around 9,500 Spaniards, of which over a fifth were born in Catalonia, were sent to Mauthausen. These prisoners, many of whom had fought for the losing Republican side in the Spanish Civil War, began to arrive in 1941 alongside other members of the French Resistance. 

Aside from political opponents, Nazis also deported Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, and people of Romani origin.