Overview

• The Spanish Prosecutor's Office has opened its first official investigation into the fate of over 9,000 Spanish Republicans deported to Nazi concentration camps during World War II.
• The inquiry, led by Dolores Delgado, focuses on crimes such as forced disappearance, illegal detention, and homicide, with evidence drawn from registry records documenting 4,435 Spanish fatalities.
• Investigators are examining potential coordination between Franco's dictatorship and the Nazi regime in the detention and transfer of Spanish exiles to camps like Mauthausen and Gusen.
• This action is enabled by the 2022 Democratic Memory Law, which redefined deportees as victims of state crimes and mandated public investigations into Franco-era human rights violations.
• The investigation coincides with the 80th anniversary of Mauthausen's liberation and reflects a broader shift toward restorative justice in Spain, despite challenges posed by the passage of time and the deaths of perpetrators.