 In February 1939 Aub left Spain with André Malraux and the film crew of "L'espoir".By 1940, the Spanish State had come to consider him a serious opponent, and in March 1940 he was denounced to the new Vichy government of France as a militant communist and a "German-Jew", and therefore a possible spy or traitor.He was imprisoned for a year in Camp Vernet, then deported to the forced labor camp of Djelfa in Algeria.