Dozens of semicircular white crosses reside in the necropolis of the Cambron-les-Ribécour military cemetery, just 100 kilometers from Paris. A small plaque recalls the name of the person who rested there. Clement Antoine. Dead for France, Prays one of them. Despite appearing under a French name, Antoine Clemente was Antonio Clemente, a citizen born in Vera (Almeria), who killed Hradisko in a Nazi concentration camp and was mistakenly taken by the French, believing he was from the country. This is something that was recently discovered by a group of researchers who followed in his footsteps until they found the discovery.
The history begins in 1945 at the Strasnitz Civil Crematorium in Prague. German soldiers transported the bodies of prisoners killed by the SS to a Nazi camp in Hradiკოko, which did not have its own crematorium and was dependent on a larger camp, Flossenburg. At first the corpses were transported by train to be burned in the latter’s furnace, but the war was no longer at the same point and communications were complicated by the advance of Allied and Soviet troops. The solution found by the Nazis was a crematorium near the Czech capital, 40 kilometers from the camp.
The Operating mode The German soldiers thought that the cemetery administrator, Frantiკek Sochi, had been instructed to burn the corpses and expel their ashes, but in the face of the horrors he saw, he decided not to obey. The remnants not only did not disappear, but he recognized them with the help of his son. After cremation, he placed the ashes of each prisoner in an individual bin, numbered next to the name of the murdered person on the list, and managed to hide the ashtray.
After the war ended and the Nazi concentration camps were liberated, the French government began a mission in which they found nearly 2,000 urns that Sushi had managed to store. Jars with ash They were honorably buried in a fence in which a memorial monument was erected. Six of them were Spanish, a novelty that became known 75 years later thanks to the work of researchers Unai Egua, Anton Gandarias and Antonio Medina. But, in addition, the French government decided to repatriate the ashes of its compatriots, about 80, in order to hand them over to their families. One of them, in the 64708 urn, was Antonio Clemente.
“His family could not be found because he was not French, so he was buried in a military cemetery with other deportees who could not be extradited,” Egua explained. Researchers were able to gather some information about Antonio: he was born on November 15, 1908 in Vera (Almeria) and spent time in the Buchenwald camps, one of the first and largest in Flossenburg, before being transferred to Hradischko, where he was killed. April 11, 1945, a week before the end of the war. Coincidentally, in those days, soldiers ordered the killing of more than 150 prisoners while they were on duty because they knew Soviet troops were there.
The exhaustive work of these three scholars, who have independently studied national and international archives and interviewed witnesses and relatives, allows us to know today the history of Sochi and the hell in which Hradishko’s prisoners lived, a camp not directly created. Destruction, but where the conditions were inhumane. “They were in wooden barracks, without water and without food. Many were killed,” Egua said.
The appendix placed 40 Spaniards, as noted by researchers who, after consulting German archives and portals, were able to compile a list of classified transport information recorded by the SS themselves with their names and data. This is not the only list: the French Repatriation Mission has also compiled one and its own list of sushi is available as it records one by one the bins that it hid and one camp in the infirmary.
The suspicion arose when Antonio Medina, recalling Egvia, reviewed the list of Frenchmen, noticed the name, Antoine Clement, “and realized that we had Antonio Clemente on our list of Spaniards.” The only thing that did not match was the year, though it did match his date of birth. So they started working. One of the goals was to find out where he was born. The French list made sure that Clemente was from the French city of Perea, but when they searched the German archives, many other documents made him a resident of Bera (Navarre) and others of Bera. (sic)In Almeria. This was not strange, since the French admitted in their writings that they had “difficulty in identifying the deportees by spelling their names.”
After confirming that he was not a Basque on the deportees list, investigators focused on Vera Almerერიa municipality. “The town archivist Manuel Caparos got involved and helped us a lot. He provided us with files of the town villas and we found Antonio,” Egua recalls. His tomb was soon found, almost 2,000 miles from the city. Now the challenge is to find his family, a task that is in the hands of memorial associations given the limited involvement that institutions have historically shown in the 9,300 Spanish deportees to Nazi camps, a chapter in the history of Franco, Hitler’s ally. To defeat him, he was conveniently obliged to hide.
Antonio Clemente and the rest of the Spanish prisoners in Hradiკოko resting in the carts that Sochi managed to escape from the Nazi horrors will be honored on April 11 and 12 at the Prague Crematorium. Investigations by Eguia, Gandarias, and Medina have led to a network of relatives who have spent decades searching for the remains of their parents, uncles, or grandparents. Gandaria and Medina are also nephews and grandchildren of two deportees: Angel Lecuona and Antonio Medina. Four of the six Spanish families resting in Strasnice will now meet their loved ones for the first time.
The respect, which is supported by researchers and families, will also have an institutional tinge and will be attended by representatives of some autonomous communities, the Prague City Council and the embassies of Spain, France and Germany.
“It’s going to be the same crematorium where they’re cremated. “When my father was arrested,” said Egua, “in addition to the tribute to the memorial, the next day the families move to Hradishko, the camp where their relatives were killed. .
From Maureillas-las-Illas, on the other side of the Catalan Pyrenees, will come the land of Enrique Moner, urn No. 62557; From Busturia (Bizkaia), Angel Lecuona (62559) and Rafael Moia (62563) from Marseilles. Antonio Medina, urn number 62560, will be given land from Motri (Granada) and Vicente Villa Cuenca (62752), Alberica (Valencia). From Pedro Raga (62558) will come the land of Uldekona (Tarragona). Although he is not buried there, part of Antonio Clemente’s native Vera will also travel to Prague. It will be to the credit of City Hall archivist Manuel Caparros, who not only helped identify him, but also sent researchers a small amount of land from his hometown.
Source: El Diario
I am Ida Scott, a journalist and content author with a passion for uncovering the truth. I have been writing professionally for Today Times Live since 2020 and specialize in political news. My career began when I was just 17; I had already developed a knack for research and an eye for detail which made me stand out from my peers.
