Francoist concentration camps

In Francoist Spain, at least two to three hundred concentration camps operated from 1936 until 1947, some permanent and many others temporary. The network of camps was an instrument of Franco's repression.^[1][2]

People such as Republican ex-combatants of the People's Army, the Air Force and the Navy, to political dissidents and their families, the poor, Moroccan separatists, homosexuals, gypsies and common prisoners ended up in these camps. The Classified Commissions that operated within the camps determined the fate of those interned: those that were declared "recoverable" were released; the "minority disaffected" and without political responsibility were sent to the worker's battalions; and the "seriously disaffected" were sent to prison and were under the order of the War Audit to be prosecuted by military court. Those classified as "common criminals" were also sent to prison. According to the official numbers of the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps of Prisoners, at the end of the civil war, 177,905 enemy soldiers were imprisoned in the approximately 100 existing camps and were detained pending trial classification. The Inspectorate also reported that until then, 431,251 people had passed through the camps.

As in many other Concentration Camps, the prisoners were ranked so that ordinary violent prisoners (thus without political or ideological motivations) were a step higher than most of those who were locked up, working as "guards" (cabos de vara), over the others. Despite the massive destruction of documentation on the camps, studies claim that some of them were characterized by the labor exploitation of prisoners, organized in workers battalions.^[3]

There is consensus among historians to confirm, according to testimonies of survivors, witnesses, and the Franco Reports themselves, that the conditions of internment “were, in general, atrocious”.^[4] Added to this, is the fact that the rebels did not recognize Republican soldiers as prisoners of war, so that the Geneva Convention of 1929, signed years earlier by King Alfonso XIII on behalf of Spain, did not apply to them. Illegality in the treatment of prisoners materialized in the use of prisoners for military work (explicitly prohibited by the Convention), widespread preventivity (internment without conviction), use of torture to obtain testimonies and denunciations, and absence of judicial guarantees. With regard to the official administration of the camps, widespread corruption, which enabled the enrichment of many military personnel and aggravated the suffering of inmates in their custody, has also been highlighted.