BOIX: I give you my assurance.
M. DUBOST: And that this picture was taken in the camp?
BOIX: I give you my assurance.
M. DUBOST: Were you taken to Mauthausen as a prisoner of war or as a political prisoner?
BOIX: As a prisoner of war.
M. DUBOST: You had fought as a volunteer in the French Army?
BOIX: Either in infantry battalions or in the Foreign Legion, or in the pioneer regiments attached to the Army to which I belonged. I was in the Vosges with the 5th Army. We were taken prisoners. We retreated as far as Belfort where I was taken prisoner in the night of 20-21 June 1940. I was put with some fellow Spaniards and transferred to Mulhouse. Knowing us to be former Spanish Republicans and anti-fascists, they put us in among the Jews as members of a lower order of humanity (Untermensch). We were prisoners of war for 6 months and then we learned that the Minister for Foreign Affairs had had an interview with Hitler to discuss the question of foreigners and other matters. We knew that our status had been among the questions raised. We heard that the Germans had asked what was to be done with Spanish prisoners of war who had served in the French Army, those of them who were Republicans and ex-members of the Republican Army. The answer . . .
M. DUBOST: Never mind that. So although you were a prisoner of war you were sent to a camp not under Army control?
BOIX: Exactly. We were prisoners of war. We were told that we were being transferred to a subordinate Kommando, like all the other Frenchmen. Then we were transferred to Mauthausen where, for the first time, we saw that there were no Wehrmacht soldiers and we realized that we were in an extermination camp.
M. DUBOST: How many of you arrived there?