Campament dels Soldats

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Ruins of the camp

The Campament dels Soldats ('soldiers' camp ') was one of a total of 104 labor camps during the Francoist period in Spain . It was near the city of Artà on the Balearic island of Mallorca . The ruins of the warehouse buildings are now in a natural park, the Parc natural de la península de Llevant in the northeast of the island, about two kilometers northeast of s'Alquera Vella d'Avall on the road from Artà to Ermita de Betlem .

history

In June 1940, a military engineer in 1930 asked workers to build a line of defense on the island coast between Port de Pollença via Porto Cristo to Cap de ses Salines on the southern tip of Mallorca. Of these, 250 men were earmarked for the construction of a military road on the 444 meter high Puig de sa Tudossa in the Serres de Llevant . Air defense facilities should be installed on the mountain. The path to be upgraded to the road, the Camí dels Presos , was about six kilometers long.

Southern building remains

From 1941 to 1943, around 750  forced laborers were housed in the Campament dels Soldats . These were mainly former soldiers of the Republican Army in the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939, but also some civilians, political opponents of the Franco regime. The first forced laborers slept in tents after being transported by train from Palma to Artà and the subsequent walk to the camp below the Puig en Porrassar . A large number of illnesses led to the construction of brick accommodation barracks on the camp grounds. Internment lists have not yet been found, but the inmates are said to have come from all parts of Spain, especially the Basque Country .

The road to Puig de sa Tudossa was not completed, and the anti-aircraft systems on the mountain were never built. A small unit of the Spanish army was stationed in the buildings of the former labor camp from 1943 to around 1948. Since the year 2002 a memorial stone of the Govern Balear , the island government of the Balearic Islands, has been commemorating the labor camp in the ruined walls . The Associació del Campament dels Soldats took off in 2011 the remains of the warehouse building free and reconstructed the floor plan.

literature

  • Antoni Puig Palerm, Tomàs Suau Mayol: Arqueologia concentracionària a Mallorca. El Campament dels Soldats . In: Mateu Riera Rullan, Jaume Cardell Perelló (ed.): V Jornades d'Arqueologia de les Illes Balears . Documenta Balear, Palma 2013, ISBN 978-84-15432-76-0 , p. 275–281 (Catalan, digitized [accessed July 3, 2017]).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Barbara Pohle: Forced Labor for Franco. Article in Mallorca Zeitung No. 570 of April 7, 2011, p. 34
  2. ↑ Campament dels Soldats - Una eina per a fer Memòria Històrica de la repressió franquista a Mallorca . campamentsoldats.blogspot.com, accessed April 26, 2011 .

Web links

Commons : Campament dels Soldats  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 39 ° 44 ′ 46 "  N , 3 ° 20 ′ 53.5"  E