Paul Preston pointed out that there were few Jews in Spain, the Spanish Communist Party had less than 20,000 members and there were less than 6,000 Freemasons in Spain, although the Spanish Army created a card file index of over 80,000 alleged Freemasons. The Nationalists believed that they were fighting a Jewish-Bolshevik-Masonic conspiracy. The progressive government of the Spanish Republic wanted to make major changes quickly to help those who had nothing and therefore made enemies. Conditions in the Spanish countryside were then equivalent to those in Africa now. The Spanish Civil War started as a Spanish war but within a fortnight the involvement of Germany, Italy and the USSR meant that it became a European one, fought in Spain.

The word exterminate was used in planning of the military coup and inquisition evoked the atmosphere of intolerance in Spain, going back to the Spanish Inquisition. He was not trying to compare the killings in Spain to the Jewish Holocaust. Most people do not appreciate the scale of the killings and some positive views of Franco persist. The proportion of Spain’s citizens who died as a result of the coup and the actions that followed it was higher than the proportion of Germans who were killed by the Nazis within the borders of Germany. He used the word holocaust to shock as he was shocked by what he learnt during his research. Paul Preston began by explaining the title of his book. The supporters of the elected government are referred to as the Republicans and those who backed the coup as the Nationalists. Dimensions: 9.59in - 6.43in - 2.11in - 2.I recently attended a talk by Paul Preston on his book The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain, held as part of Glasgow’s Aye Write book festival. The book deals with murders and other atrocities committed during and in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, which was started by a military coup in 1936 and lasted for three years.The story of the victims of Franco's reign of terror is framed by the activities of four key men-General Mola, Quiepo de Llano, Major Vallejo Najera, and Captain Don Gonzalo Aguilera-whose dogma of eugenics, terrorization, domination, and mind control horrifyingly mirror the fascism of Italy and Germany.Įvoking such classics as Gulag and The Great Terror, The Spanish Holocaust sheds crucial light on one of the darkest and most unexamined eras of modern European history Book Details As Spain finally reclaims its historical memory, a full picture can now be given of the Spanish Holocaust-ranging from judicial murders to the abuse of women and children.

Besides those killed on the battlefield, tens of thousands were officially executed between 19, and as many again became non-persons. His enemies, however, met less-exalted fates. The remains of General Francisco Franco lie in an immense mausoleum near Madrid, built with the blood and sweat of twenty thousand slave laborers.

The Spanish Holocaust by Paul Preston