Argentinians in the Saint-Cyprien concentration camp

This photograph belonged to Bernardo Llompart, who was born in Buenos Aires in Buenos Aires in 1912. It shows a group of 21 Argentinian fighters in the Saint Cyprien concentration camp in France holding a banner with borders in the colours of Argentina and the Spanish Republic. 

The men in the photo were only a small percentage of the more than 200 Argentinians who spent time in Saint Cyprien. Hundreds more were held in other French camps. They got there the same was as did many thousands of Spanish Republicans, crossing the Pyrenees on foot and being interned until they were repatriated, sent to work camps, or managed to escape. 

More than 1,000 Argentinian volunteers, men and women, went to Spain to fight against fascism. Among them were 15 doctors, 10 nurses, 30 translators, 20 writers, and 20 trade unionists. Their social origins were similar to those of the volunteers from the United States. Both were countries of mass immigration and there were Jews, Lithuanians Italians, Spaniards, Germans, Poles, and others in both groups. About half were Communists. The rest were divided among Republicans (20 per cent), anarchists (20 per cent), and other leftist ideologies (10 percent).  Many of them came from towns and villages in Buenos Aires province, travelling clandestinely to the ports. The papers they needed to travel to Spain were provided by the Communist Party or, to a lesser extent, by anarchist organizations. 

As many Argentinian volunteers, native born as well as immigrants, spoke or understood other European languages, they were often dispersed among various International Brigade units as combatants, technical assistants or translators. The largest number went to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, where there were 50 who served as soldiers, NCOs, political commissars, doctors and truck drivers. Many were in the Brigade’s Spanish Batallion Nª 24, where they served alongside many Cubans, as well as people from Canada, Great Britain, Ireland and the United States. 

Llompart returned to Argentina in 1939. He worked as a shoemaker before establishing a small factory. He remained active in Republican and Communist circles for decades and was one of the organizers of the reunions of Argentinian former combatants in Buenos Aires in the 1960s and 1970s. He also shared memories with Argentinian veterans at the Republican Club in Mar de la Plata. Believing he had cancer, he committed suicide in 2007.