MADRID
\nSpanish prosecutors on Monday said they were investigating whether General Francisco Franco\u2019s dictatorship collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II to send thousands of exiled Spaniards in France to death camps.
\nThousands of Spaniards fled to France after Franco\u2019s Fascist-backed nationalists overthrew a republic in the 1936-1939 civil war, only to find themselves under Nazi occupation in France from 1940.
\nThe investigation will \u201cclarify the relevant responsibilities and the existence of a possible joint strategy\u201d between Franco\u2019s dictatorship and Nazi Germany \u201cin the detention and subsequent transfer of thousands of Spaniards exiled in France to different extermination camps,\u201d the public prosecutor\u2019s office said.
\nThe Mauthausen camp in Austria was among the sites where the republican exiles \u201cwere subjected to forced labor, torture, disappearance and murder,\u201d the prosecutor\u2019s office added.
\nThe human rights and democratic memory section of the office will lead the inquiry into the 4,435 recorded dead.
\nThe prosecutors\u2019 office said the probe coincided with the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Mauthausen and was launched in accordance with a divisive 2022 democratic memory law.
\nThe left-wing government passed the legislation in a bid to tackle the legacy of the civil war and honor victims of violence and persecution under Franco, who ruled with an iron fist until his death in 1975.
\nThe right-wing opposition says the left is trying to reopen the wounds of the past with the law and has vowed to repeal it if they return to power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MADRID Spanish prosecutors on Monday said they were investigating whether General Francisco Franco\u2019s dictatorship collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II to send thousands of exiled Spaniards in France to death camps. Thousands of Spaniards fled to France after Franco\u2019s Fascist-backed nationalists overthrew a republic in the 1936-1939 civil war, only to find themselves […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-476648","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n