“From Sepharad to Freedom: Jewish Refugees and Rescue Operations in Spain and Portugal during the Holocaust, 1939-1945”
Professional Background
Mr. Pedro Correa Martín-Arroyo is PhD candidate in International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science (United Kingdom). He is a native Spanish speaker, is fluent in English, French, and Italian, and possesses basic or reading language skills in Polish, German, Dutch, Portuguese, and Judeo-Spanish. While in residence at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, Mr. Correa conducted research on his project, “From Sepharad to Freedom: Jewish Refugees and Rescue Operations in Spain and Portugal during the Holocaust, 1939-1945.”
Mr. Correa has written a number of publications, including “The Politics of Holocaust Rescue Myths in Spain: from Francoist Legend to the Righteous Diplomats”, coauthored with Prof. Alejandro Baer and forthcoming in The Politics of the Neutrals during the Shoah (IHRA, 2016); “Franco, Savior of the Jews? Tracing the Genealogy of the Myth and Assessing its Persistence in recent Historiography”, forthcoming in Lessons and Legacies of the Holocaust XIII (Northwestern University, 2018); and “La España Franquista y el Mito de la Salvación de los Judíos durante el Holocausto, 1940-1945” [Francoist Spain and the Myth of the rescue during the Holocaust] in Ubi Sunt? Revista de Historia, No. 28 (2013). Mr. Correa has also been awarded a number of scholarships and distinctions, including the ‘La Caixa’ scholarship for Postgraduate Studies in Europe, the European Parliament-Prof. Bronisław Geremek European Civilisation Chair scholarship for history graduates, and the Best Master Thesis Award by the College of Europe for his dissertation: “Histoeuropeanisation: Challenges and Implications of rewriting the history of Europe ‘Europeanly’, 1989-2015” (Warsaw, 2013).
Fellowship Research
For his Diane and Howard Wohl Fellowship at the Mandel Center, Mr. Correa examined a range of sources including governmental sources from various European countries; records from international refugee organisations such as the American Friends Service Committee, the Joint Distribution Committee, the International Red Cross, and the Hebrew Immigration Aid Society; as well as oral interviews, diaries and memoirs pertaining to Jewish refugees who were in transit through the Iberian Peninsula during the Holocaust.
Mr. Pedro Correa Martín-Arroyo was in residence at the Mandel Center from December 1, 2015 to July 31, 2016.