The reading from the Letter to the Galatians this Sunday reminds us that the law is fulfilled in the directive to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Spanish dictator general Francisco Franco apparently saw things differently. Contrary to reports that he sheltered Jews from the Nazis, recently uncovered archives show he ordered the creation of a list of some 6,000 Jews living in Spain for the Nazis.

The list was turned over to German S.S. leader Henrich Himmler as the two countries negotiated Spain’s possible incorporation into the group of Axis powers that included Italy, according to an investigation by the Spanish newspaper El País.

The newspaper printed the original order, recently unearthed from Spanish archives, that instructed provincial governors to draw up lists 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.”

Provincial governors were ordered to look out especially for Sephardic Jews, descendants of those expelled from Spain in 1492, because their Ladino language and Hispanic background helped them fit into Spanish society.

“Their adaptation to our environment and their similar temperament allow them to hide their origins more easily,” said the order, sent out in May, 1941.

Spaniards have long argued over Franco’s attitude toward Jews, which appeared to vary according to what was most useful to his foreign policy. With Hitler and Benito Mussolini defeated and the allies under pressure to oust Franco, his regime tried to cover the tracks of its collaboration with Hitler and rewrite the history of its policy towards Jews, says the newspaper.

Most of the Jewish register was destroyed. Copies of some parts of it, however, remained in the provincial governors’ offices and these have since been found in archives.

Source: An article by Giles Tremlett for Guardian.co.uk