A thousand Jews fleeing the Nazi regime arrested in the Pyrenees, Girona province, 1939–1945. Initial findings

Abstract

This paper contains the first results of research that focuses on the geographical and administrative area of the province of Girona. It concerns the Jews who entered Spanish territory illegally and were subsequently intercepted by the Civil Guard and detained in Figueres and Girona. Each case of interception and arrest (be it of individuals, couples, families or groups) was recorded in police and administrative documents which were later placed together in specific dossiers referred to as the ‘border files’ of the Civil Authority of the Province of Girona. Now kept in the Historical Archive of Girona, the dossiers in question are the source of the data and results set out in this paper, which merely consist of raw or reinterpreted data from the files we have studied so far. The first part of the paper contextualizes and describes the circumstances of fugitives’ flight and passage through the Pyrenees. The second part looks at the legal framework corresponding to their arrest, Spanish reception arrangements, and the administrative process that made a positive outcome possible. We then present some statistics regarding places, dates, and the detainees’ countries of origin and sociological profile, before looking at details of certain individual cases.

Keywords: Jews, border between France and Spain, Franco regime, illegal aliens, documentation, arrest, prison