The project “Os Trabalhadores Forçados Portugueses e Espanhóis no III Reich” [Portuguese and Spanish Forced Workers in the III Reich], coordinated by Cláudia Ninhos, was one of the projects supported by the 6th Edition of the Exploratory Funding Competition for International Projects, promoted by the NOVA School of Social Sciences and Humanities. The competition aims to “promote the preparation of competitive applications for research funding by the European Commission”.

In an investigation started in 2015, a team of IHC researchers identified about a thousand Portuguese victims of the National Socialist regime, rescuing their memory and reconstructing their life stories. This work was funded by the German foundation EVZ — Erinnerung, Verantwortung, Zukunft [Memory, Responsibility, Future].

Cláudia Ninhos explains that the next phase of the project extends the investigation to victims of Spanish nationality and will also seek to “deepen and systematize the scientific knowledge about forced labour and the logic of deportation of foreigners from France during World War II”.

The new transnational project will be proposed to the Europe for Citizens Programme, which “finances projects that contribute to the understanding of the European Union, its history and diversity, promote European citizenship and improve the conditions for civic and democratic participation”. In addition to the IHC, partners will include researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, the University of Paris 8, the EUROM — European Observatory on Memories, the Arolsen Archives — International Center on Nazi Persecution, the Dokumentationszentrum NS-Zwangsarbeit in Berlin and the Stutthof Museum.