Spanish Culture Behind Barbed Wire: Memory and Representation of the French Concentration Camps, 1939-1945By the end of the Spanish Civil War in March of 1939, almost 500,000 Spaniards had fled Francisco Franco's newly established military dictatorship. More than 275,000 refugees in France were immediately interned in hastily constructed concentration camps, most of which were located along the open shorelines of France's southernmost beaches. This book chronicles the cultural memory of this war refugee population whose stories as camp inmates in the early 1940s remain largely unknown, unlike the wide dissemination of the literature and testimony of the survivors of Nazi death camps. The hidden history of France's seaside camps for Spanish Republicans spawned a rich legacy of cultural works that dramatically demonstrate how a displaced political community began to reconstitute itself from the ruins of war, literally from the sands of exile. Combining close textual analyses of memoirs, poetry, drama, and fiction with a carefully researched historical perspective, Spanish Culture behind Barbed Wire Investigates how the most significant literature of the early post-civil war exile period appropriated the concentration camp as a discursive vehicle. |
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Agustí Alambradas Amieva Andújar Antonio Machado Argelès Argelès-sur-Mer Artís-Gener Aub's barbed wire barbed-wire Barcarès Barcelona Bartolí Bartra beach beauty camp inmates Campos de concentración Celso Amieva chabola chapter Collioure concentration camp Cristo cultural Cyprien dead death describes diary Don Quijote dream Ediciones edition emigración emigration Espinar Eulalio Ferrer exilio español Éxodo fellow fight France Francia freedom French concentration camps García Gerpe gendarmes Gerpe's guards hope Ibid identity Igualada imagination interned José Juan Julio León Felipe letter living Luis Luis Suárez Madrid María Max Aub memoir memory Mexico City narrator nation Negrín novel official Paris poem poet police political prisoners published in Mexico Pyrenees recalls refers refugiados Remedios Varo Rojo sand scene Septfonds SERE soldiers space Spain Spaniards Spanish Civil Spanish Civil War Spanish exile Spanish refugees Spanish Republic Spanish Republican story Suárez suffering Tarrés thousands tion Vernet Vives writes