The pathological sequelae of concentration camps among Spanish refugees in France: diagnostic and therapeutic challenges in the Hospital Varsovia of Toulouse (1944-1950)

Abstract

From the spring of 1945, the Hospital Varsovia in Toulouse (France) provided medical assistance to thousands of Spanish Republican refugees who remained in exile in Southern France. The hospital had been founded in the autumn of 1944 in the outskirts of Toulouse after the invasion of Aran Valley in the context of the so-called Operation Reconquest of Spain. A review of clinical cases reported in the pages of Anales del Hospital Varsovia (1948-1950) shows that many patients had contracted diseases in the concentration camps because of the poor living conditions under a regime of severe confinement. Doctors de­scribed insidious diseases that were difficult to diagnose. Successive clinical and laboratory tests revealed the presence of latent deficiency diseases (due to mal­nutrition), chronic occult infections (tuberculosis and intestinal parasitosis), and sexually transmitted diseases.