THE AMICAL MAUTHAUSEN’S CONFERENCE

The last January 30th, Tomàs and Llibert, two members of the Association Amical Mauthausen came to explain us the experiences  they family had to live during the Second World War. They, as being sons of deportees, decided to come to our Institute and share their story to us.

At the end of the Civil War, 80 years ago, about 56,000 people had to exile to France. Lots of families had to go to France on foot, in one of the worst winters they ever experienced. 

Many of these families were interned in concentration camps such as Argelès, etc., in a miserable condition.

In 1939, when the war started, Thomas and Llibert parents were brought in concentration camps and nazi extermination, specifically in Mauthausen. But they would not notice about this situation in many years later.

Thomas's father died at 42, so he just spent a year inside the concentration camp dealing with the horrible conditions under they lived there: the food that they were allowed to eat for just a few months, they had to sleep in a little place or shelter dealing with the cold, exploited for hours and hours throughout the day...

The mortality rate in the camps exceeded the 60%, before the Jewish extermination started. However, there were many people who were able to escape from this situation,, the people who had experienced this surviving.

The experiences that their parents lived in the nazi camps was not known util many years later. Thomas, for example, was able to find out that his father died in Mauthausen thanks to a man who escaped from the camp, and who had contacted with Thoma’s family.

In short, we could say that it was a pleasant visit that helped us to understand from a deeper point of view the Holocaust and each of the feelings that the victims had to feel; one of the worst catastrophes of humanity.