Book Talk: "Spaniards in Mauthausen: Representations of a Nazi Concentration Camp"

by: Sara J. Brenneis, Professor of Spanish, Amherst College
Sara J. Brenneis
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Spaniards in Mauthausen: Representations of a Nazi Concentration Camp, 1940-2015 is the first study of the cultural legacy of Spaniards imprisoned and killed during the Second World War in the Nazi concentration camp Mauthausen. Diverse accounts from survivors of Mauthausen, chronicled in letters, artwork, photographs, memoirs, fiction, film, theatre, and new media, illustrate how Spaniards have become cognizant of the Spanish government’s relationship to the Nazis and its role in the victimization of Spanish nationals in Mauthausen. By examining narratives about Spanish Mauthausen victims over the past seventy years, author Sara J. Brenneis provides a historical, critical, and chronological analysis of a virtually unknown body of work.

Sara J. Brenneis is Professor of Spanish at Amherst College in Massachusetts. She has published three books that examine the interplay between fiction and history in 20th Century Spain, with a particular focus on Spain's legacy during World War II: Spain, the Second World War and the Holocaust: History and Representation (U Toronto P, 2020), coedited with Gina Herrmann; Spaniards in Mauthausen: Representations of a Nazi Concentration Camp, 1940-2015 (U Toronto P, 2018); and Genre Fusion: A New Approach to History, Fiction, and Memory in Contemporary Spain (Purdue UP, 2014).

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Presented by the University of Minnesota's Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Center for Austrian Studies, and Department of Spanish and Portuguese; cosponsored by the Ray Wolpow Institute for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity (Western Washington University), the Center for Inter-American Studies of the University of Graz (Austria), and the Centro Sefarad-Israel (Madrid).

NOTE these related follow-up events with cosponsoring units:
October 22, 2020Panel on "The Franco Dictatorship and Historical Memory in Spain"
January 28 to January 31, 2022: "The Graz Conference on Guantanamo Bay: Human Rights, Camps, and (In)Justice in the Americas"; part of the conference will devote attention to the European aspect, as the first camps were established in America by the Spanish (etc.).
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