The Diplomat
The Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, participated yesterday in the inauguration of the exhibition Mauthausen: Shared Memories, organized by the Centro Sefarad-Israel in conjunction with the State Secretariat for Democratic Memory.
During his speech, Bolaños stressed the importance of this type of exhibition so that events such as those that occurred during the Second World War do not happen again, because “no historical stage is exempt from suffering democratic setbacks”. “There is always some kind of threat to democracy from dictators, from satraps who do not want our societies to be societies with democratic values and human rights”, and, therefore, “keeping alive the memory of these men and women who had to spend some time of their lives in Mauthausen is a tribute to democracy”, he concluded.
For his part, Albares stated that the exhibition is a tribute to “the shared memory of the Republican Jews and Spaniards interned in Mauthausen.” “We reaffirm the commitment to tolerance and freedom, essential values of Spanish society,” he added. The event was also attended by the State Secretary for Foreign and Global Affairs, Ángeles Moreno Bau; the director general of Centro Sefarad-Israel, Jaime Moreno Bau; the ambassadors of Poland, Anna Sroka, and Germany, Maria Margarete Gosse; and the ambassador of Austria, Enno Drofenik, among other personalities.
Through different personal stories documented with audiovisual material, photographs and objects, the exhibition aims to show the shared trajectory of the Spanish Republicans and the Jews who were interned in the Mauthausen concentration camp. The exhibition can be visited until June 28 at the headquarters of the Centro Sefarad-Israel in Madrid.
The Mauthausen concentration camp, located in Austria, became the symbol of the final fate of most of the Spanish Republicans. Of the approximately 10,000 Spanish deportees, around 7,500 went to Mauthausen. For their part, most of the Jews deported to Mauthausen were deported in 1944, from Hungary, and in 1945, transferred from the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp after the so-called Death Marches.
Centro Sefarad-Israel and the Secretary of State for Democratic Memory are organizing this exhibition with the aim of raising awareness and reflecting on the shared trajectory of the Spanish Republicans and the Jews who were interned in the Mauthausen concentration camp. It has the collaboration of the Community of Madrid and the City Council of Madrid, and the support of the German Embassy, the Cultural Forum of Austria, the Embassy of Poland, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Amical de Mauthausen and other camps.
