WORLD WAR II: BARBARY & EXILE

On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland under the false pretext that the Poles had carried out a series of sabotage operations against German targets near the border. Two days later, on 3 September, after a British ultimatum to Germany to cease military operations was ignored, Britain and France, followed by the fully independent Dominions of the British Commonwealth—Australia (3 September), Canada (10 September), New Zealand (3 September), and South Africa (6 September)—declared war on Germany. However, initially the alliance provided limited direct military support to Poland, consisting of a cautious, half-hearted French probe into the Saarland. The Western Allies also began a naval blockade of Germany, which aimed to damage the country's economy and war effort. Germany responded by ordering U-boat warfare against Allied merchant and warships, which was to later escalate into the Battle of the Atlantic.

More information: WW2 People's War

The German government led by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party was responsible for the Holocaust, the killing of approximately 6 million Jews, as well as 2.7 million ethnic Poles, and 4 million others who were deemed "unworthy of life" (including the disabled and mentally ill, Soviet prisoners of war, homosexuals, Freemasons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Romani) as part of a programme of deliberate extermination. About 12 million, most of whom were Eastern Europeans, were employed in the German war economy as forced labourers.

More information: Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau

The Catalan-French border was witness of the Jewish exile. Thanks to the citizens of la Val d’Aran, els Pallars, l'Alt Urgell, la Cerdanya, el Ripollès, l'Alt Empordà and Andorra, thousands of people could save their lives and started new ones in other countries.

It wasn’t an exceptional case. This border was a route of exit during other conflicts: the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and the Cathar exile in the 13th century.

More information: Persecuted and Saved

 The adjustment of reality to the masses
and of the masses to reality is a process of unlimited scope,
as much for thinking as for perception. 

Walter Benjamin