Enric Marco (12 April 1921 – 21 May 2022) was a Catalonian

impostor An impostor (also spelled imposter) is a person who pretends to be somebody else, often through means of disguise. Their objective is usually to try to gain financial or social advantages through social engineering, but also often for purposes ...

who claimed to have been a

prison A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, corre ...

er in

Nazi German Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

concentration camp Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simpl ...

Mauthausen Mauthausen was a Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regu ...

and Flossenbürg in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. He was awarded the

Creu de Sant Jordi The Creu de Sant Jordi (, in English ' St George's Cross') is one of the highest civil distinctions awarded in Catalonia (Spain), surpassed only in protocol by the Gold Medal of the Generalitat de Catalunya. It was established by the Generalit ...

by the

Catalan Catalan may refer to: Catalonia From, or related to Catalonia: * Catalan language, a Romance language * Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia Places * 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...

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. Marco was born in

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

on 12 April 1921. 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 , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

in 1943. Marco claimed he had volunteered in 1941 to work in

Kiel Kiel () is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 246,243 (2021). Kiel lies approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the southeast of the Jutland ...

for the Nazi war industry. In his made-up story called ''Memoir of Hell'' Marco wrote he had been involved in the

French resistance The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...

and captured by the

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...

in southern France. After 2001 Marco represented an association of survivors of the thousands of

Spaniards Spaniards, or Spanish people, are a Romance ethnic group native to Spain. Within Spain, there are a number of national and regional ethnic identities that reflect the country's complex history, including a number of different languages, both in ...

who had truly been deported to Nazi concentration camps. From 1978 to 1979, Marco, a metal worker, had been the General Secretary of the Spanish anarchist Union CNT (

Confederación Nacional del Trabajo The Confederación Nacional del Trabajo ( en, National Confederation of Labor; CNT) is a Spanish confederation of anarcho-syndicalist Anarcho-syndicalism is a political philosophy and anarchist school of thought that views revolutionar ...

), from which he was expelled in 1980. Marco died on 21 May 2022, at the age of 101.

Popular culture

* "Ich bin Enric Marco" directed by Santiago Fillol and Lucas Vermal, produced by Corte y Confección de películas

Bibliography

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

References

External links

* The Times, 14 May 2005.
Times online.
nbsp;^{'' orced redirect'} {{DEFAULTSORT:Marco, Enric Impostors 1921 births 2022 deaths Hoaxes in Spain People from Catalonia Anarchists from Catalonia Secretaries General of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo

Popular culture

Bibliography

See also

References

External links