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, |