The use of antisemitism in the Spanish Civil War

Patterns of Prejudice

Volumn 37, Issue 2, 2003, Pages 195-211

  Rohr, Isabelle ^a  

^a LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Acti n Espa ola; Antisemitism; Falange; Fascism; Francisco Franco; Morocco; Nazism; Propaganda; Spain; Spanish Civil War

Indexed keywords

EID: 0042833287     PISSN: 0031322X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/0031322032000084705     Document Type: Article

References (85)

1. This article is based on research that was partly facilitated by a Felix Posen Fellowship awarded by the Vidal Sassoon Center for the Study of Antisemitism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, for which I am grateful, I would also like to thank the two anonymous readers for their useful comments.
2. On Jewish participation in the International Brigades, see David Diamant, Combattants juifs dans l'armée républicaine espagnole 1936-1939 (Paris: Editions du Renouveau 1979) and Arno Lustiger, Shalom libertad!: les Juifs dans la guerre civile espagnole, trans. from the German by Chantal Kesteloot (Paris: Editions du Cerf 1991). On the Franco regime's rescue activities, see Chaim Lipschitz, Franco, Spain, the Jews and the Holocaust (New York: Ktav Publishing House 1984), Haim Avni, Spain, the Jews and Franco, trans. Emanuel Schimoni (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America 1982), Antonio Marquina and Inés Ospina, España y los judíos en el siglo XX (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe 1987) and José Antonio Lisbona, Retorno a Sefarad: la política de España hacia sus judíos en el siglo XX (Barcelona: Comisión Nacional Judía Sefarad 1993).
3. On Jewish participation in the International Brigades, see David Diamant, Combattants juifs dans l'armée républicaine espagnole 1936-1939 (Paris: Editions du Renouveau 1979) and Arno Lustiger, Shalom libertad!: les Juifs dans la guerre civile espagnole, trans. from the German by Chantal Kesteloot (Paris: Editions du Cerf 1991). On the Franco regime's rescue activities, see Chaim Lipschitz, Franco, Spain, the Jews and the Holocaust (New York: Ktav Publishing House 1984), Haim Avni, Spain, the Jews and Franco, trans. Emanuel Schimoni (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America 1982), Antonio Marquina and Inés Ospina, España y los judíos en el siglo XX (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe 1987) and José Antonio Lisbona, Retorno a Sefarad: la política de España hacia sus judíos en el siglo XX (Barcelona: Comisión Nacional Judía Sefarad 1993).
4. On Jewish participation in the International Brigades, see David Diamant, Combattants juifs dans l'armée républicaine espagnole 1936-1939 (Paris: Editions du Renouveau 1979) and Arno Lustiger, Shalom libertad!: les Juifs dans la guerre civile espagnole, trans. from the German by Chantal Kesteloot (Paris: Editions du Cerf 1991). On the Franco regime's rescue activities, see Chaim Lipschitz, Franco, Spain, the Jews and the Holocaust (New York: Ktav Publishing House 1984), Haim Avni, Spain, the Jews and Franco, trans. Emanuel Schimoni (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America 1982), Antonio Marquina and Inés Ospina, España y los judíos en el siglo XX (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe 1987) and José Antonio Lisbona, Retorno a Sefarad: la política de España hacia sus judíos en el siglo XX (Barcelona: Comisión Nacional Judía Sefarad 1993).
5. On Jewish participation in the International Brigades, see David Diamant, Combattants juifs dans l'armée républicaine espagnole 1936-1939 (Paris: Editions du Renouveau 1979) and Arno Lustiger, Shalom libertad!: les Juifs dans la guerre civile espagnole, trans. from the German by Chantal Kesteloot (Paris: Editions du Cerf 1991). On the Franco regime's rescue activities, see Chaim Lipschitz, Franco, Spain, the Jews and the Holocaust (New York: Ktav Publishing House 1984), Haim Avni, Spain, the Jews and Franco, trans. Emanuel Schimoni (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America 1982), Antonio Marquina and Inés Ospina, España y los judíos en el siglo XX (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe 1987) and José Antonio Lisbona, Retorno a Sefarad: la política de España hacia sus judíos en el siglo XX (Barcelona: Comisión Nacional Judía Sefarad 1993).
6. On Jewish participation in the International Brigades, see David Diamant, Combattants juifs dans l'armée républicaine espagnole 1936-1939 (Paris: Editions du Renouveau 1979) and Arno Lustiger, Shalom libertad!: les Juifs dans la guerre civile espagnole, trans. from the German by Chantal Kesteloot (Paris: Editions du Cerf 1991). On the Franco regime's rescue activities, see Chaim Lipschitz, Franco, Spain, the Jews and the Holocaust (New York: Ktav Publishing House 1984), Haim Avni, Spain, the Jews and Franco, trans. Emanuel Schimoni (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America 1982), Antonio Marquina and Inés Ospina, España y los judíos en el siglo XX (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe 1987) and José Antonio Lisbona, Retorno a Sefarad: la política de España hacia sus judíos en el siglo XX (Barcelona: Comisión Nacional Judía Sefarad 1993).
7. On Jewish participation in the International Brigades, see David Diamant, Combattants juifs dans l'armée républicaine espagnole 1936-1939 (Paris: Editions du Renouveau 1979) and Arno Lustiger, Shalom libertad!: les Juifs dans la guerre civile espagnole, trans. from the German by Chantal Kesteloot (Paris: Editions du Cerf 1991). On the Franco regime's rescue activities, see Chaim Lipschitz, Franco, Spain, the Jews and the Holocaust (New York: Ktav Publishing House 1984), Haim Avni, Spain, the Jews and Franco, trans. Emanuel Schimoni (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America 1982), Antonio Marquina and Inés Ospina, España y los judíos en el siglo XX (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe 1987) and José Antonio Lisbona, Retorno a Sefarad: la política de España hacia sus judíos en el siglo XX (Barcelona: Comisión Nacional Judía Sefarad 1993).
8. Emilio Mola, Tempestad, calma, intriga y crisis, 2nd edn (Madrid: Librería Verruga 1932), 159. Unless otherwise stated, translations from the Spanish are by the author.
9. Francisco Franco, 'Xauen la triste', Revista de tropas coloniales, no. 19, July 1926, 146.
10. English translation of General Franco's speech of 31 December 1939: Public Record Office, Kew, London (hereafter PRO), FO 371/24507 C348.
11. Herbert R. Southworth, Conspiracy and the Spanish Civil War: The Brainwashing of Francisco Franco (London: Routledge 2002), 129-91.
12. Paul Preston, 'Alfonsist monarchism and the coming of the Spanish civil war', in Martin Blinkhorn (ed.), Spain in Conflict: Democracy and Its Enemies (London: Sage 1986), 179.
13. See Raúl Morodo, Actión Española. Origenes ideológicos del franquismo (Madrid: Alianza Universidad 1980).
14. Preston, 'Alfonsist monarchism', 168.
15. Actión Española, no. 38, 1 October 1933.
16. Morodo, 73.
17. Ramiro de Maeztu, Defensa de la hispanidad, 4th edn (Madrid: Graf. Universal 1941), 211-12.
18. Michael Richards, A Time of Silence: Civil War and the Culture of Repression in Franco's Spain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1998), 16-19.
19. Albert Prago estimates the number of Jewish brigadiers at between 7,000 and 10,000, in Alvah Bessie and Albert Prago (eds), Our Fight: Writings by the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade: Spain 1936-1939 (New York: Monthly Review Press 1987), 96, while Arno Lustiger regards 6,000 as a more likely figure, in 'Jews in the International Brigades', in Carlos Carrete Parrondo, Uriel Macías, Yolanda Moreno Koch and Ricardo Izquierdo Benito (eds), Los judíos en la España contemporánea: historia y visiones 1898-1998. VIII Curso de Cultura Hispanojudía y Sefardí de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha (Cuenca: Ediciones de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha 2000), 179.
20. Albert Prago estimates the number of Jewish brigadiers at between 7,000 and 10,000, in Alvah Bessie and Albert Prago (eds), Our Fight: Writings by the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade: Spain 1936-1939 (New York: Monthly Review Press 1987), 96, while Arno Lustiger regards 6,000 as a more likely figure, in 'Jews in the International Brigades', in Carlos Carrete Parrondo, Uriel Macías, Yolanda Moreno Koch and Ricardo Izquierdo Benito (eds), Los judíos en la España contemporánea: historia y visiones 1898-1998. VIII Curso de Cultura Hispanojudía y Sefardí de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha (Cuenca: Ediciones de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha 2000), 179.
21. English translation quoted in Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War (London: Penguin Books 1990), 512.
22. English translation quoted in Louis W. Bondy, Racketeers of Hatred. Julius Streicher and the Jew-Baiters' International (London: Newman Wolsey 1946), 210.
23. English translation quoted in Jewish Chronicle, 30 September 1938.
24. Quoted in Carlos Fernández, Antología de 40 años (1936-1975) (La Coruña: Ediciós do Castro 1983), 13.
25. José Maria Pemán, El poema de la bestia y del ángel (Saragossa: Ediciones Jerarquía 1938). Pemán's antisemitism is discussed in Herbert R. Southworth, Le Mythe de la croisade de Franco, trans. from the English by S. M.r-S. (Paris: Ruedo Ibérico 1964), 111-13 and Gonzalo Álvarez Chillida, José Maria Pemán. Pensamiento y trayectora de un monárquico (1897-1941) (Cádiz: Universidad de Cádiz 1996), 339-66.
26. José Maria Pemán, El poema de la bestia y del ángel (Saragossa: Ediciones Jerarquía 1938). Pemán's antisemitism is discussed in Herbert R. Southworth, Le Mythe de la croisade de Franco, trans. from the English by S. M.-S. (Paris: Ruedo Ibérico 1964), 111-13 and Gonzalo Álvarez Chillida, José Maria Pemán. Pensamiento y trayectora de un monárquico (1897-1941) (Cádiz: Universidad de Cádiz 1996), 339-66.
27. José Maria Pemán, El poema de la bestia y del ángel (Saragossa: Ediciones Jerarquía 1938). Pemán's antisemitism is discussed in Herbert R. Southworth, Le Mythe de la croisade de Franco, trans. from the English by S. M.-S. (Paris: Ruedo Ibérico 1964), 111-13 and Gonzalo Álvarez Chillida, José Maria Pemán. Pensamiento y trayectora de un monárquico (1897-1941) (Cádiz: Universidad de Cádiz 1996), 339-66.
28. Pemán, 93.
29. Juan Pujol, in Domingo, 22 May 1938.
30. Vincente Gay, Estampas rojas y caballeros blancos (Burgos: Hijos de Santiago Rodríguez 1937), 37.
31. Giménez Caballero, in Domingo, 11 December 1938.
32. I b i d.
33. Antonio Vallejo-Nágera, Eugenesia de la hispanidad y regeneratión de la raza. (Burgos: Editorial Española 1937), 105-6.
34. Quoted in Jewish Chronicle, 24 June 1938.
35. Paul Preston, Palomas de guerra: cinco mujeres marcadas por el enfrentamiento bélico, trans. from the English by Irene Gonzalo (Barcelona: Plaza and Janés 2001), 261-351.
36. Juan Pujol, in ABC, 19 February 1939. During the Second Republic ABC was a monarchist paper. When the Republicans took over the ABC offices in Madrid during the war, the Nationalists established ABC Seville. After the war, the paper returned to Madrid.
37. Pemán, 1009.
38. Luis Antonio de Vega, 'Fernando Ríos Rabino de España', Domingo, 3 October 1937 and Juan Pujol, 'Le tremblada un día la barba', Domingo, 22 May 1938.
39. Luis Antonio de Vega, 'Fernando Ríos Rabino de España', Domingo, 3 October 1937 and Juan Pujol, 'Le tremblada un día la barba', Domingo, 22 May 1938.
40. Juan Pujol, 'El pulpo', Domingo, 4 April 1937.
41. Juan Pujol, 'Cuando Israel manda', ABC Seville, 20 December 1936.
42. Víctor de la Serna, 'Signos, Guernica', ABC Seville, 19 April 1937.
43. Pujol, 'Cuando Israel manda'.
44. Thomas, 337-99.
45. Juan Pujol, 'Francia presa de Israel', ABC Seville, 16 January 1937.
46. ABC, 17 June 1939.
47. Jesus Pabón, 'Un judío', Domingo, 12 June 1938.
48. Ramon Serrano Suñer, in ABC Seville, 21 June 1938.
49. Francisco Ferrari Billoch, 'El escritor que vendío su alma al diablo', Domingo, 30 June 1938.
50. English translation quoted in Jewish Chronicle, 30 April 1937.
51. English translation quoted in Herbert. R. Southworth, 'The Spanish Phalanx and Latin America', Foreign Affairs, October 1939, 151.
52. English translation quoted in American Hebrew, 24 September 1937.
53. American Jewish Year Book, vol. 40, 1938-9, 188.
54. Bondy, 210.
55. Letter from Consul-General Rodgers, Barcelona to the Foreign Office, London, 28 July 1939: PRO, FO 371/24154 W11493/2150/4.
56. Telegram from Consul-General Rodgers, Barcelona to the Foreign Office, London, 6 February 1939: PRO, FO 371/24154 W2150/2150/41.
57. Charles Halstead, 'A "Somewhat Machiavellian" face: Colonel Juan Beigbeder as High Commissioner in Spanish Morocco, 1937-1939', Historian, vol. 37, November 1974, 50 and Shannon E. Flemming, 'Spanish Morocco and the Alzamiento Nacional, 1936-1939: the military, economic and political mobilization of a protectorate', Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 18, January 1983, 36-7.
58. Charles Halstead, 'A "Somewhat Machiavellian" face: Colonel Juan Beigbeder as High Commissioner in Spanish Morocco, 1937-1939', Historian, vol. 37, November 1974, 50 and Shannon E. Flemming, 'Spanish Morocco and the Alzamiento Nacional, 1936-1939: the military, economic and political mobilization of a protectorate', Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 18, January 1983, 36-7.
59. Jewish Chronicle, 26 March 1937.
60. Letter from Moïse Levy, director of the Alliance Israélite Universelle (hereafter AIU) school, Tetuán, to the president of the AIU, Paris, 5 March 1937: Archives of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, Paris (hereafter AAIU), IV.C.II.
61. Letter from Leon Aranias to the president of the AIU in Paris, 21 February 1937: AAIU, IV.C.II.
62. Dépêche de Toulouse, 11 August 1937: AAIU, IV.C.II.
63. Quoted in Otto Katz, The Nazi Conspiracy in Spain (London: Victor Gollancz 1937), 177.
64. See Jewish Chronicle, 22 February 1937; L'Univers israélite, 29 January 1937; letter from Albert Saguès, director of the AIU, Tangier, to the president of the AIU, Paris, 21 February 1937: AAIU, IV.C.II; and letter from Consul Monck-Mason, Tetuán, to the Foreign Office, London, 22 March 1938: PRO, FO 371/21650 C2394/34/18.
65. See Jewish Chronicle, 22 February 1937; L'Univers israélite, 29 January 1937; letter from Albert Saguès, director of the AIU, Tangier, to the president of the AIU, Paris, 21 February 1937: AAIU, IV.C.II; and letter from Consul Monck-Mason, Tetuán, to the Foreign Office, London, 22 March 1938: PRO, FO 371/21650 C2394/34/18.
66. Zone espagnole du Maroc (Evenements de 1936, Sédition du Maroc Espagnol), 196: Ministère des Affaires Étrangères Français, Paris, Série: Correspondance politique et commerciale, sous-série: M Maroc, No. 207 Intérêts espagnols.
67. Letter from Albert Saguès, Tangier, to the president of the AIU, Paris, 7 October 1938: AAIU, I.D.I.
68. Zone espagnole du Maroc; letter from Consul Monck-Mason, Tetuán, to the president of the AIU, Paris, 30 September 1936: PRO, FO 371/20500 W12765/247/28.
69. Zone espagnole du Maroc.
70. PRO, FO 371/21264 W6889.
71. I b i d.
72. Letter from Albert Saguès, Tangier, to the president of the AIU, Paris, 27 October 1937: AAIU, IV.C.II.
73. Letters from Albert Saguès, Tangier, to the president of the AIU, Paris, 26 and 30 August 1937: AAIU, IV.C.II. See also pamphlet of the Asociación Hispano Hebrea, 16 November 1938: Archives of the Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Madrid (hereafter MAE), R893.
74. Weekly report by Consul Monck-Mason to Edward Keeling, Consul-General in Tangier, 10 September 1937: PRO, FO 371/21266 W6889.
75. Translation of Democracia, 25 February 1937, and letter from Albert Saguès, Tangier, to the president of the AIU, Paris, 27 October 1937: AAIU, IV.C.II.
76. Letter from Albert Saguès, Tangier, to the president of the AIU, Paris, 27 October 1937: AAIU, IV.C.II.
77. Jewish Chronicle, 21 August 1936 and 17 December 1937.
78. Letter from Albert Saguès, Tangier, to the president of the AIU, Paris, 27 October 1937: AAIU, IV.CII.
79. Letter from Consul Monck-Mason to E. A. Keeling, Consul General, Tangier, [23 November 1936]: PRO, FO 371/20501 W17273.
80. Letter from Albert Saguès, Tangier, to the president of the AIU, Paris, 8 September 1936: AAIU, LXE.943 (e) Ecoles Tanger; and letter from Albert Saguès, Tangier, to the president of the AIU, Paris, 30 August 1937: AAIU, IV.C.II.
81. Letter from Albert Saguès, Tangier, to the president of the AIU, Paris, 25 February 1937: AAIU, IV.C.II.
82. Letter from Albert Saguès, Tangier, to the president of the AIU, Paris, 27 October 1937, and report by Moïse Levy, 18 July 1938: AAIU, IV.C.II and I.D.I, respectively.
83. Pamphlet of the Asociación Hispano Hebrea, 16 November 1938: MAE, R893.
84. Jewish Chronicle, 19 February 1937.
85. These figures are taken from Avni; see also Marquina and Ospina.