Spanish dictator General Francisco Franco had reportedly ordered his provincial governors to compile a list of Jews, which could have sent thousands to their deaths in the extermination camps run by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime.
It runs contrary to popular opinion that General Franco protected Jews from the Holocaust during World War II.
According to Spanish newspaper El Pais, General Franco had ordered his officials to draw up a list of some 6,000 Jews living in Spain.
The order, sent out in May 1941, was signed by Franco’s head of security, Jose Finat Escriva de Romani.
It ordered a list of “all the national and foreign Jews living in the province... showing their personal and political leanings, means of living, commercial activities, degree of danger and security category”.
The provincial governors were also ordered to look out especially for Sephardic Jews, descendants of those expelled from Spain in 1492.
“Their adaptation to our environment and their similar temperament allow them to hide their origins more easily,” the Guardian quoted the order, as saying.
Romani later personally handed over the list to German Protective Squadron chief Heinrich Himmler, when he was appointed Spanish ambassador to Germany.
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Gunman hunt shuts sports area
Melbourne, June 21: The police cordoned off the MCG stadium and the Australian Open tennis arena in central Melbourne on Monday as they searched for a gunman who escaped the police during a high-speed chase.
The police wearing body armour was seen at the sporting precinct around the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) and Rod Laver Arena, and closed it to traffic and pedestrians for more than an hour as it hunted in foggy conditions.
“A significant police lock-down of the area failed to locate the man, who remains on the run,” the Victoria Police said in a statement, adding that a firearm and balaclava were later found by a police dog unit near Rod Laver Arena.
The police said no shots were fired but the search followed a high-speed freeway chase, during which a police car and three other cars were rammed by another vehicle, leaving one officer with back injuries. The police alleges the suspected gunman stole a car and committed an armed robbery on a petrol station before abandoning the vehicle, robbing a house and stealing a car parked in its driveway before the police chase began. —AFP