With the collapse of the Spanish Republic in early 1939, some 400,000 refugees fled the country and the Nationalist’s reprisals. Some managed to make their way to the Americas to find a welcome sanctuary in Mexico, while a small number were able to make it to the Soviet Union due to political connections in the Spanish Communist Party. Many of them would serve - and die - with the Red Army during the ‘Great Patriotic War’.

But for the majority, France was the only possible destination. Soldiers were given the option to volunteer and make their way into the French Foreign Legion (The famed 13th Semi-Brigade included many Spaniards, and was one of the first to declare loyalty to the Free French), but hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children were herded into internment camps. About 70,000 soon returned to face an uncertain future in Spain, and many others were used in labor brigades, soon to be used preparing defenses against Germany once World War II broke out. Following the German invasion, Spanish Republicans who evaded capture would be inaugural members of the French Resistance, putting their skills from the previous conflict to good use.

When Germany took France, many refugees who remained in France were deported back into Spain, where show-trial executions awaited many, and a vast penal system took in the rest, where they were politically reeducated, and worked as slave labor. In some cases though - mainly Loyalist veterans and high profile political figures - the Germans had them sent to concentration camps, mostly Mauthausen. By 1945 some 500,000 people in Spain would face some sort of judicial process for involvement with the Republic, while about 10,000 Republicans would die in the German camps.

(Magnum Photos)