The forgotten stories of Brazil’s concentration camps

During the 1930s, Nazi Germany was the second largest consumer of Brazilian goods. Brazil’s police and armed forces often visited Europe to receive training from the Gestapo, and the government handed over German Jews living in Brazil. In April 1942, not long after the Nazi party had decided on its “final solution to the Jewish problem,” 2,000 Nazis marched on the streets of Santa Catarina, in Brazil’s south, wearing full uniform.

At the time, Brazil was governed by President Getúlio Vargas. Elected by the people in 1930, he later became a dictator and — before joining World War II on the side of the Allies — he flirted with the ideas of Nazism, implanting a form of “tropical fascism” in South America’s largest country.

Often overlooked during the retelling of this period’s history, Vargas instructed Brazilian diplomats in Europe not to grant entry visas to Jewish people and other minorities.

Vargas cut ties with Hitler in 1942 and joined the war — but he did not turn his back on his fascist tendencies. In fact, he began to use them against citizens from Axis countries. The Vargas government went as far as building veritable concentration camps to round up German, Japanese, and Italian civilians. While these were a far cry from the systems of torture and mass extermination set up in Nazi Germany, they were far from pleasant.

Until the end of the war, the Brazilian Justice Ministry oversaw...