View of El Buit from Kudia Federico

This postcard issued in 1913 or 1914 shows work on defensive positions to protect the road between Tangiers and Ceuta undertaken by Spanish military engineers in the Protectorate of Morocco. There were numerous military engineering projects across the territory of the Protectorate, and they were destined to serve private initiatives like mining as much as to defend the roads connecting towns in northern Morocco.  

The place that appears in the photograph is located in the town of El Biutz and was known as Kudia Federico. Between 1936 and 1940 it was a concentration camp. 

At least four of the more than 300 concentration camps spread across Spanish territory, and in which around one million Spaniards would spend time, were located in Morocco. Although this represents only a small proportion of the total, Morocco has the dubious honour of being the site of the very first camp, in Alcazaba de Zeluán, which opened on 19 July 1936. There was also the Zeluán camp, located very close to Melilla, in a place that was part of the historical memory of the Battle of Annual. (In 1921, a Spanish position at the nearby Mount Arruit had been besieged by Moroccan soldiers and its garrison massacred after surrendering.) A third camp, El Mogote, was scarcely three kilometres south of Tetuan. Finally, there was the walled Victoria Grande Fort in Melilla, although this was considered a women’s prison. 

These camps were places of confinement, purges, punishment, re-education and extermination of the thousands of Spaniards who passed through them. Many of the prisoners in Morocco were members of workers’ centres in Tangiers and Tetuan and Republican civil servants and political figures. There were also some Jews who supported the Republic. In addition to the hunger, overcrowding, poor hygiene and disease that the prisoners endured, many were victims of the notorious paseos (rides). More than one hundred were shot in El Mogote alone. Other shootings took place in Asila, Chauen, Alcazarquivir, Rincón, Alhucemas, Nador, Castillejos, Río Martín, Bab Tizza, and Targuist. 

The first acts of the rebels in Morocco would set the pattern for the way in which the new authorities would treat those civilians they considered to be opponents. In the process, some of the structures built by the army in Morocco since 1912, some of which had been the site of glorious patriotic deeds, were sadly degraded as they were converted into punishment camps to serve the new order.