| Hello
and welcome to the final instalment in our long series. I dare say the telling
of our tale has almost taken longer than the dispute itself, at least as far as
the Pitiusan theatre of war is concerned. Now, with the holidays approaching,
I feel it is best to make a truce with this particular chapter of history, leaving
any further inquiry into the subject for another…year, at the very least!
This week, to conclude our study of the war, we will turn
our attention to the political refugees who managed to flee the Pitiuses upon
the arrival of National rule. Readers will remember from our last instalment that
the National repression for those who did not manage to escape was characterized
by what can only be termed ‘arbitrary tyranny’. No individual, whether
from the left or the right of the political spectrum, was exempt from the scrutiny
of the ‘New State’. Extrajudicial executions became a nightly occurrence,
especially in the early months of wartime rule. In addition to the elimination
of overtly anti-fascist members of society, many of the victims of these political
witch-hunts were simply people who, for one reason or another, had in pre-war
times inspired the ill-will of those locals who now shared power with the new
warlords. Hence, with the breakdown of law and order that characterizes any wartime
society, personal vendettas rather than actual political ‘crimes’ were
all too often the driving force behind these nocturnal killings. Family
Members Pay Political Debt Also in operation during
the early days of National hegemony was the idea that the relatives of Republican
activists and sympathizers should pay the price for their kinsmen’s political
crimes. As was only natural, those Republicans who had attained high positions
of civic leadership were also those who generally managed to escape, thanks to
the aid of the larger political network to which they belonged. Meanwhile the
poor brother or father or faithful follower was left behind to reap punishment
in the escapee’s stead. To be sure, some of Ibiza’s prominent Republican
leaders (Joan Gómez Ripoll and Joan Guasch i Juan to name two) were apprehended
in person and executed more or less legally (who’s to say what’s legal
in a dictatorship) in Palma de Majorca at the close of the war. As
my invaluable source Artur Parron states in his book, La Guerra Civil a Eivissa
I Formentera, “…because of this [scarcity of available targets]
repression centred on activists and sympathizers from the popular base, those
with no public importance who should not have feared any particularly harsh reprisals
for their involvements. For this reason, Franco’s repression was rendered
much more indiscriminate and bloody, in that its primary objective was that of
creating an atmosphere of terror and collective silence; often times the scapegoat
was a relative of the person who had actually played an active political role…”
The Plight of Formentera Because
of the secrecy with which these political exterminations took place, the exact
number of victims has never been established with any accuracy. Between the two
islands, it is estimated that well over one hundred lives were lost in the name
of ‘political responsibility’. In Formentera however, given the leftist
orientation of the island, the purges were, in Parron’s words, “brutal,
of disproportionate violence”. No less than eighteen Formenterencs were killed,
while at least five died in Nazi concentration camps. This last fact, while it
has no doubt raised more than a few readers’ eyebrows, should not really
surprise us if we consider Franco’s intimate friendship with both Hitler
and Mussolini. Not only did Franco invite Hitler to test out his latest weaponry
on Guernica in the rebellious Basque Country, el Caudillo also provided der Führer
with human offerings for the latter’s labour camps. If we keep in mind the
Nationals’ keen desire for retaliation against those pockets of Spanish society
that were most ideologically at odds with fascism, it becomes clear why tiny anarchistic
Formentera should have suffered the grimmest extremes of this retaliation. The
island’s repeated leftist electoral victories were neither forgotten nor
forgiven. Moreover, it was not only the terror of the nocturnal killings that
afflicted the lesser Pitiusans, it was the fact that life was deliberately kept
at subsistence level, with hunger and isolation as ever-present realities. From
1939 - 1942, Formentera was also used by National authorities as a concentration
camp for political dissidents from mainland Spain, usually until the time of the
prisoners’ execution. Thus, in every possible way, the Formenterencs were
made painfully aware of the new political order and its implacability. Republican
Refugees Flee Islands While political refugees escaped
from Ibiza and Formentera throughout the entire wartime period, the largest exodus
occurred between 13th and 20th September 1936, the week that Republican rule crumbled
and National occupation was known to be imminent. At this stage, many Ibicencos
sought shelter in Minorca, which remained Republican territory until February
1939, only two months prior to the close of the war. The idea was to keep alive
the Ibicenco institutions that had held sway under Republican rule, so as to reinstate
them at some optimistically imagined time in the future. Needless to say, that
time never came, so that when Minorca finally capitulated, those Ibicencos who
could, were forced to escape to France and other points in Europe, this time with
no glimmer of hope that democracy would be reinstated in their lifetime. The inhabitants
of Formentera generally chose Algeria and other points along the North African
littoral as their place of exile. Most arrived there by rowing, often en masse.
Undoubtedly, one of the most crippling social consequences
of the Spanish Civil War was the huge incidence of exile it provoked, an exile
that affected every walk of life, from the elite to the humble, from writers,
artists and thinkers to the common man and the noble tasks he performs. Spaniards
in general sought refuge in Europe, especially France, as a first stop before
heading on to more permanent locations farther a field, such as the Soviet Union
and the Americas. Large numbers of Ibicencos settled in France, Britain and Latin
American, especially Argentina, never returning to the island of their birth,
even after political embargoes were lifted. The loss, either through execution
or exile, of such large swaths of humanity, left a rather lopsided, unilateral
society in its wake, both in the Pitiuses and in greater Spain. As many Spaniards
say, until the return of democracy in 1975, it felt like the country was missing
its other half, for both great men of destiny as well as a colourful range of
ordinary mortals were conspicuous by their absence. Closing Well,
my friends, that is all she wrote! Forgive me if, in my haste, I have disregarded
certain aspects of the war. All along the line, it has been a judgement call as
to what to include and what to leave out, given that the information available
on this subject is virtually inexhaustible. I do hope, at least, that we have
all learned some small thing from our study. Many thanks for bearing with me right
to the bitter end. I could have never hoped for a more patient and understanding
readership. This year I am going to take a long Christmas
break with my family in the States, for which reason I will resume the history
page in mid-January. I believe the 17th is the first Friday in January I will
be back on line. Do rest assured that we will turn out attention to more cheerful
topics in the New Year. And do have a happy, healthy holiday, one and all! Love,
Emily Kaufman
emilykaufman@ibizahistoryculture.com
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