Rojos in the hills
A law which will attempt to address some of the wrongs resulting from the Civil war has been given the backing of the Spanish Government. It will offer compensation and recognition to the victims of the three year conflict; however the ranks of surviving Republicans must be diminishing rapidly. The Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said that the legislation should “heal wounds without re-opening them".
Are the wounds still suppurating?
I had the opportunity of speaking with some Civil War veterans, combatants and civilians, in the villages of the Sierra Subbètica. I was a bit worried about my reception. I imagined speaking in hushed tones, in darkened rooms, the interviewees speaking out the corner of their mouths and jumping to the slightest noise. The reality was quite different, people spoke openly even with enthusiasm, interrupting each other to get their point across. The progress of time had certainly numbed any raw nerves.
They shall not pass
I met Amalia in Zuheros as she enjoyed the early evening breeze; we sat on her doorstep with two neighbours discussing the events of 70 years ago. Her most vivid recollection was the arrival of the Falangists in the village. For reasons she didn’t understand, she was singled out and her head shaved. “They took my hair away, but left a knot on the top of my head, they dragged me by it”. Those with a grudge against her family, or perhaps afraid of similar treatment jeered and mocked her as she was paraded around the village. When I asked about executions, she simply said that some men had been taken away, old feuds had been settled. It was simple! Tell the local militia commander that your rival was of a different political persuasion, he did the rest.
Another resident of Zuheros José, told me that there were Rojos in the hills between Zuheros and Baena . They exchanged fire during the day and at night utilized the echoes from the surrounding Sierra to call to their friends in the opposite camp. One man even told me that some of the Republican militiamen slept in the village during the night, and fired on it from the hills during the day. The Republicans never entered the village in anger and from the way he was speaking the standoff was good sport.
In Iznájar I met Antonio whose uncle had served with the Nationalist Ejército de Africa in Spanish Morocco. The uncle had told him that in 1936 the local council was initially Republican, but after they communalized the produce from the surrounding wheat fields, they are olive groves now, support was soon lost and the Nationalists very quickly replaced them. A Republican force from Loja did attempt to retake the town but were driven back by the small garrison. The handful of defenders moved quickly from position to position, firing, fooling the enemy into believing that they were there in greater numbers.
Those whom I spoke to that were involved with the Nationalist cause, had little or no contact with the Italian or German war machines, their only interests was firstly survival and secondly what was best for their village. Politics was of no interest to them and the grandiose plans of the Republicans meant nothing if the agricultural system collapsed. The only reticence in answering my questions came about when I mentioned the bombing of Almería, Málaga Guernica and Madrid. “We did not command the Condor squadrons!” was the terse reply, this was the only question which seemed to rattle them.
The Restaurante Rosi at the northern end of Iznájar’s Bridge was where I met Fernando and Manuel, both from families who supported the Republic. Fernando was 12 when the Falangists came for him, tipped off by a friend, Fernando spent two weeks living rough
in the campo trying to avoid the death squad. He told me that his family gave food to the Maquis, the Republicans who carried on the fight after Franco’s victory in 1939.
When I asked them whether they had any knowledge of the International Brigades, Manuel told me of his uncle who saved an Italian from the Garibaldi or Figlio Brigades. “He was being hunted by the Italian Fascists; my uncle hid and fed him”.
When asked if they had any bitterness towards Britain and the United States for not ousting Franco in 1945, they just shrugged their shoulders “We were not interested in politics, if it got to dangerous to be republican we became Nationalists” said Fernando.
This philosophy was repeated by most of the village people I spoke to. The importance of politics diminishes the closer to the soil one lives.
These people supported who ever they needed to in order to survive; in that respect they were impartial. Their wounds were not therefore sectarian and must be resilient to re-opening. It is for us outsiders that impartiality is a problem.
Whilst speaking with one particular villager, a learned man who enjoyed the simplicity of village life, he told me that the impartial account of the Civil War has yet to be written. I realized how true this was when I was in Zuheros. Whilst interviewing one of the village elders he referred to the Rojos in the hills! Zuheros was Nationalist! This shook me a bit.
I have an affinity with Zuheros and a dislike for fascism, so my very simple mind told me unconsciously perhaps that Zuheros must be Republican. To discover it was Nationalist was rather like discovering your sons are tea-total, very worrying. Even I a foreigner who was born over a decade after the events in question couldn’t manage impartiality!
I do not believe that the people of the Subbètica have much interest in whether or not pensions are awarded to the few remaining ex-combatants, or if the Republican dead are re-interred in the Valley of the Fallen. They have put the past behind them and in its
rightful context. Their wounds are now tough scar tissue. They may not forget the past, but they have forgiven. The salutation Vaya con Dios is not conditional on political leanings.