New book reveals the stories of Lanzarote islanders at Mauthausen concentration camp

A new book reveals the stories of five Lanzarote islanders who ended up in the Mauthausen concentration camp

Historian Pedro Mayo’s book Los Cinco de Mauthausen (The Mauthausen Five) tells the story of Domingo Cedrés, Pedro Noda, Domingo Padrón, Rafael Arrocha and Jacinto Morales.

Four of the men were fishermen who fled to North Africa from the island following the military coup undertaken by General Franco in 1936. Morales, meanwhile, was a ship’s cook who joined a mutiny and also ended up in Africa. The men then fought for the republican side in the Spanish Civil War and were interned in refugee camps in the south of France following the defeat of the republican forces.

Unwilling to return to Spain, four signed up as foreign workers, while Morales enlisted in the French Foreign Legion. All were later captured by Nazi forces during the occupation of France and eventually ended up as slaves in Mauthausen, a camp where Spanish republicans with military experience were often sent.

There, Domingo Cedres and Pedro Noda died under the brutally harsh conditions of the camp. Cedres’s cause of death was reported as “pneumonia”, although Moya claims this was standard procedure by the German authorities to describe deaths caused by forced exposure to extreme cold.  Noda was reportedly beaten to death after planning an escape attempt.

The other three islanders – Padrón, Arrocha and Morales – were all eventually liberated by allied forces. Unwilling to return to fascist Spain, all three lived out their lives in France.  

Moya’s book was launched in Arrecife last week in the presence of historians Andreas Kurz, and Eva Feenstra as well as Pedro Noda’s grandson, also named Pedro.