From correspondents in Madrid May 11, 2005 From: Agence France-Presse A SPANISH citizen who was chairman of an association of Spanish Republicans deported from France to Nazi concentration camps during World War II has admitted his tale of surviving the Flossenbuerg camp was a lie.
Enric Marco, 84, chaired the survivors' association right through to the eve of this week's 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Mauthausen camp in Austria, but now says he never set foot in a Nazi camp. A historian researching the Mauthausen anniversary used the opportunity to look into events at Flossenbuerg – and failed to find any trace of Mr Marco ever having been there.
Advertisement: Spain was neutral in World War II following its civil war, which ended in 1939, but thousands of Republicans hostile to the victorious regime of General Francisco Franco fled to France and were interned in camps from which many were later deported to Germany.
Mr Marco was already in Austria for the Mauthausen ceremony when the news of his deception emerged and the association ordered his return.
"I admit I never was interned in the Flossenbuerg camp, though I was in preventative detention accused of plotting against the Third Reich," he said.
He said he was freed and sent back to Spain in 1943.
Mr Marco has given hundreds of conferences in schools about his pretended experiences and wrote a biography called Memory of Hell in 1978.
He was also secretary general of the Communist CNT union and chairman of a pupil- parents federation.
The association's treasurer, Jesus Ruiz, said Mr Marco's deception was a sorry affair.
"This story is a boon for the (Holocaust) deniers," he said.
