Eighty years ago, American soldiers liberated the notorious Mauthausen Nazi concentration camp in Austria, and they received a message of solidarity from Spanish prisoners who had been imprisoned there. The Spaniards welcomed the liberators with a banner that read “The Spanish Antifascists Greet the Liberating Forces,” showing their shared fight against extremism.
Mauthausen was established by the Nazis in 1938 and was home to over 16,000 Jews and 66,000 non-Jewish prisoners, including 60% of the roughly 7,200 Spaniards imprisoned there. The Spanish prisoners were committed antifascist resistors who had fought against Francisco Franco and Adolf Hitler.
The young men with the 11th Armored Division of the U.S. Army who liberated Mauthausen recalled the horrors they witnessed firsthand. George Sherman remembered seeing piles of bodies and people walking around like skeletons. Sgt. Harry Saunders said that liberating Mauthausen was a moment of clarity for him, as he realized why the Allies had to stop Hitler.
One Spanish prisoner, Francesc Boix, took photos of American soldiers during liberation and kept them for life. These photographs provided valuable evidence in war crime trials at Nuremberg and Dachau. Boix also gave hundreds of photo negatives to American investigators and later testified about his experiences.
For the American liberators, their experience at Mauthausen was a lifelong vaccine against extremism. They witnessed firsthand the horrors of fascism and saw with their own eyes the death and destruction caused by it. Today, many are concerned that the United States is heading down a similar path, and they are warning of the dangers of extremism.
The liberation of Mauthausen and the solidarity shown by the Spanish prisoners serve as a reminder of the importance of standing up against extremism and protecting democracy. As Maj. George E. King warned in 1980, “It could happen here.”
Source: https://www.mississippifreepress.org/opinion-american-liberators-wartime-experiences-are-a-warning-for-today