Enric Marco

Marco receiving the Creu de Sant Jordi Award in 2001

Enric Marco Batlle (12 April 1921 – 21 May 2022) was a Spanish impostor who claimed to have been a prisoner in Nazi German concentration camp Flossenbürg in World War II. He was awarded the Creu de Sant Jordi by the Catalan government in 2001 and wrote a book on his experiences. In 2005 he admitted his claims were false and returned his medal, after his deception was revealed by university researcher Benito Bermejo.

Biography

Marco was born in Barcelona on 12 April 1921.[1] He told Catalan TV: "I wasn't in a concentration camp. I was held in captivity and the Nazis did impose penalties on me. But that does not exonerate me from being an impostor." He said he was released after being mistreated for several weeks and returned to Spain in 1943. Marco later admitted to having volunteered in 1941 to work in Kiel for the Nazi war industry. In his made-up story called Memoir of Hell Marco wrote he had been involved in the French resistance and captured by the Gestapo in southern France.[2]

After 2001 Marco represented an association of survivors of the thousands of Spaniards who had truly been deported to Nazi concentration camp Mauthausen.

From 1978 to 1979, Marco, a metal worker, had been the General Secretary of the Spanish anarchist Union CNT (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo), from which he was expelled in 1980.

Marco died on 21 May 2022, at the age of 101.[3]

  • Ich bin Enric Marco (2009) directed by Santiago Fillol and Lucas Vermal, produced by Corte y Confección de películas
  • Marco: The Invented Truth (2024) Directed by Jon Garaño & Aitor Arregi

Bibliography

  • Memorias del infierno,[4] (Memories or Memoir of Hell) by Enric Marco, 1978. Spanish.[5]
  • El impostor by Javier Cercas - (2014, Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial, Spain)

See also

References

  1. ^ How Spanish Nazi victim Enric Marco was exposed as impostor
  2. ^ "Spanish Nazi camp 'survivor' lied". A leading representative of Holocaust survivors in Spain has admitted to being "an impostor". BBC. 12 May 2005.
  3. ^ "Enric Marco: In Memóriam". Rojo y Negro. 25 June 2022. Retrieved 19 January 2023.
  4. ^ Pere Riera Obiol (2012). "Memorias del infierno". FALSAS memorias Holocausto. Autobiografías. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 15 June 2015.
  5. ^ Giles Tremlett in Madrid (12 May 2005). "Spain's concentration camp hero is exposed as a fraud". The Guardian. World News. Retrieved 15 June 2015.