False Holocaust survivor gave over 8,000 talks

The Holocaust was the largest genocide of mankind, which resulted in more than six million Jews killed during World War II. The mass killings of these people took place largely in the concentration chamber gas chambers, as well as gunshot wounds, in a terrible way that marked world history.

Despite so many deaths, many Jews managed to survive by having the opportunity to escape or when they were released by troops fighting the Nazis. Many of these Jews have told their story of deep suffering in books or TV shows in completely true detail.

However, there was a false Holocaust survivor who saw in the tragedy of many people a way to promote himself. This is the story of Enric Marco Batlle, a Catalan Spaniard who decided to impersonate a former prisoner of a Nazi concentration camp to deceive thousands.

The Long Scam

Enric Batlle became known as a trade unionist, who concentrated his activities on the educational movement as leader of parent associations during the Spanish Transition period. Enric's public life actually began when he became secretary general of the Catalan Federation in 1977, while still using the name Enrique Marco.

A year later, he was appointed Secretary General of the National Confederation of Labor, heading to the V Congress in 1979. For various factors involved in fraud, he was expelled from the Confederation in 1980. Another trade unionist who worked with him at the time, He said little was known about Batlle's life story.

Although he had been lying since 1976 about an alleged prison in concentration camps in the Nazi era, it was not until 2000 that Enric decided to intensify the lie, when he approached Spanish Holocaust support associations, so much so that he was president of the largest organization in this segment in Barcelona.

During this period he said that he had been exiled to France during World War II and deported to the Nazi concentration camp of Flossenbürg (Bavaria) to collaborate with the French Resistance. With this story enriched with some details, Enric gave a series of lectures, especially in schools, about his alleged experience as a Holocaust survivor.

Feeding the lie

Enic Batlle then appeared on various television programs, presenting an alleged traumatic "testimony" about his involvement in the Spanish Civil War, Republican exile, resistance in France, World War II, and Nazi concentration camps.

As if all this were not enough, he still represented the Spanish victims of these camps in numerous celebrations, becoming a symbol and even a form of idol of many people.

In early 2005, Enric gave an emotional and dramatic speech to the Spanish Parliament during a tribute to Holocaust victims and crimes against humanity. The event was marked by its prominence in the commemorations of the liberation of the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp (in Austria) with the presence of the Prime Minister of Spain, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and the chancellor of Austria.

When the house fell

In some of these events with Spanish survivors of Nazi Germany was the historian Benito Bermejo, who followed these events as a form of research. And it was thanks to him that Enric's story went downhill. Speaking to some of the few victims who survived the Holocaust who were at the events, Benito realized that they barely knew Enric's background, besides the little he told.

So the historian decided to delve deeper into this man who claimed to be a former prisoner of the Flossenbürg concentration camp and confirmed that all he said was a hoax. Benito then made a denunciation report stating that Enric's story was extremely inconsistent and showed that he had never been a Republican exile in France either.

However, it was true that Enric had been in Nazi Germany, but as a volunteer worker in the service of the German war industry (which was made possible by an agreement between the countries of August 1941 to provide Germany with a Spanish workforce), but he had never been arrested for his "aid to the anti-Nazi resistance in France, " as he said.

I work in Germany

In fact, he was a contract worker at Kiel's Deutsche Werke Werft, and in 1943 he was accused of distributing Communist orientation propaganda to his compatriots. So the Gestapo (the Nazi secret police) arrested him that year (and not in 1941 as he had said), but after only three weeks in prison, he was returned to Spain, where he went to work for the rest of the war. .

Thus, and checking some other dates of events that did not match Enric's lies, Benito concluded that he had never been to a concentration camp, much less been an “antifascist fighter.” The hoax was made public in the media on May 10, 2005.

Enric had to convene a press conference to acknowledge the falsity of his stories and was forced to resign from the chairmanship of the Holocaust victims' organization. In addition, he was required to return a civil award medal that the Catalan government had awarded him.

Along with all this was the disappointment of thousands, as Enric had given over 8, 000 lectures about his presence in the concentration camps, using it as a hook to achieve success and, consequently, money.

But while acknowledging that it was a mistake to claim to be a victim of Nazi Germany, Enric says his intentions were good, saying he did so to be more effective in conveying the message of peace he intended to spread to the world.

This whole story inspired a documentary called Ich bin Enric Marco, where he himself visits the concentration camp that he said was a prisoner and other places he actually went, but as a worker.