FEBRUARY 1937 – CAROLINE ANGUS

‘The Moors are coming’

By January 1937, the Spanish Civil War already six months old, and the southern region of Andalucía had already been through its fair share of horrors. With much of the area sided with the Republicans, the Nationalists, led by fascist Franco (and his German and Italian allies) were hot on ripping through Andalucía and ruling the area, and were having great success. In January, General Queipo de Lllano, who had already enjoyed mass executions through Andalucía, was named head of the Army of the South, a division of 15,000 troops, made up of Spanish soldiers and Moorish fighters from Morocco, based in Seville. They were aided by Italian men brought in from Cadiz, 10,000 ‘Blackshirts’, and were ordered to take Málaga on the southern coast, picking up Granada, Marbella and Ronda on the way, along with the surrounding rural areas.

The city of Málaga, population 250,000, plus another 90,000 who had fled there from the countryside, saw no immediate reason to worry, and their 12,000 Republican militia (only 8,000 armed) did not take up any training, dug in no trenches, set up no road blocks and manned no hilltop lookouts. They simply did not have the manpower or supplies to defend themselves. The Nationalists were battle-hardened men who had no problem killing brutally, particularly the Moorish soldiers, who had committed horrid crimes elsewhere in Spain.

The attack began on February 3, 1937 when Ronda was defeated by Nationalist troops, leading them right to Málaga, coming from the west. The Italian troops, who had entered the region from the northern hills, arrived on February 6. At that point, all the people of the city could either fight or flee. Through the day on February 7, the Republican fighters were torn apart by the onslaught of the Nationalists, and executions began. It mattered little whether you were a militiaman or not, you were executed. Women were raped brutally, and then shot if the rape didn’t kill them. Children were killed in the crossfire or just killed as collateral damage. February 8 marked the official fall of Málaga, completely swamped with Nationalist soldiers and bombed from the air by German and Italian planes. Boats offshore also bombarded the city. Around 4,000 people were killed in the initial executions alone, though exact numbers are not possible.

The people of Málaga had only one way to go; east along the coast towards the haven of Almería, an area relatively safe at this point in the war. But Almería was 220km (135 miles) along the N-340. It is unknown precisely how many people tried to flee, either on foot, donkey or by truck (until petrol ran out anyway), though an estimate by Contemporary History professors Encarnación Barranquero and Lucia Prieto is 100,000 now-refugees.

By dawn on February 8, the city was Nationalist territory, and many of the people who fled were around 30 kilometres east in Torre del Mar, walking the sparse road. Trucks that ambled past were loaded with children, parents eager to get them to safety any way possible, begging the trucks to take children from their arms as they walked. They had to walk with everything they owned, clothes, bedding, sewing machines, tools, water, anything they had, strapped and carried by their bodies or donkeys. But the walk was not their only problem. General Queipo de Llano was not content with taking the city and executing those who didn’t flee. The refugees would be chased.

As people trekked the winding, hilly, unsealed road, the troops were making their way behind them, swift and trained for marching. Then bombing from the air along the road began. People had nowhere to hide – caves, ditches, rocks, anything had to be used for defense as the Nationalists looked to wipe out the lot. The 16-kilometre stretch between Nerja (55 kilometres east of Málaga) and La Herradura suffered a terrible fate as the first wave of civilians were attacked, bodies littering the road as they were defenseless from the air. Parents were forced to dig with their hands and bury their children. People pressed themselves against cliff-faces in the hope of safety and died on the spot. Gutters filled with bodies as they fell from the roadside. Whole extended families were found lying together, all dead, and some with children left alive, picked up by other people strong enough to carry an extra person. The bridge over the Guadalfeo River, 90 kilometres from Málaga, was bombed, sending innocent refugees into the water and drowned at nightfall.

By the time the refugees arrived in Motril, 95 kilometres from Málaga, the International Brigades were there to help defend them against the Nationalists, but many refugees were now injured, starving and exhausted, and still had a long way to go, with family members left dead on the roadside. None would return until the end of the war, some remained in exile for life. Reports state that skeletons of the people killed on that dusty stretch were still to be found on the roadside until the mid-1960’s. No one wanted to go home along the N-340, and the whole incident was silenced.

One man became well-known in the mess, a Canadian named Norman Bethune. A doctor and ambulance driver, he was in Spain to fight fascism as an international volunteer. His ambulance raced back and forth along this road, trying to save all he could. To read about Bethune, try ‘The Ambulance Man and the Spanish Civil War’ by Paul Read. It’s a shame the locals who suffered this event were not so well-known, their stories limited to tales told between generations until recently.

Professors at the University of Málaga estimate over 5,000 people died on the road, based on oral histories collected, plus burial records in Salamanca, and Málaga archives. Bodies were not properly buried or treated, so the exact figure can never be established. Those killed and buried along the roadside are still left there today. Ten years ago, the Diputación de Málaga opened its archives for professors to complete historical memory works on the massacre in the area, to accompany the stories of 400 people who came forward with their personal accounts of the event.

The Malaga-Almeria massacre is commemorated at Torre del Mar, considered a halfway point along the road where the massacre took place, on February 7, the date people began to flee their homes in Málaga. This attack was almost a practice, a prelude to many atrocities that would go on to occur in WWII. The damage done to the people of Málaga, the towns that were in the firing line towards Almeria, and the whole rural region itself is unimaginable, and how it shaped and changed the lives and lifestyle of following generation in the area has been largely ignored until recent times.

If you are interested and can read Spanish, the book by professors Encarnación Barranquero and Lucia Prieto from the University of Malaga is Poblacion y Guerra Civil en Málaga: Caido Exodo y Refugio, an excellent book, well researched, with powerful personal recollections.

A first person account written is 1937 is Norman Bethune’s The crime on the road Malaga-Almeria : narrative with graphic documents revealing fascist cruelty (if you can get a copy – I can’t!)

This is not a detailed analysis, just a highlight (lowlight?) of the week’s events. Things get lost in translation – Feel free to suggest an addition/clarification/correction below. The more the world remembers, the better. All photos are auto-linked to source for credit.

Lucía Sánchez Saornil was born in Madrid on 13 December 1895, and raised in poverty by her father. Sánchez got accepted into the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando (Madrid) with her passion for poetry, and by 1919 she had already been published in multiple journals, where she used a pen name. As a man, she was able to write of lesbian themes; at that time, all gay relationships (and anything related) was subject to censorship and prison time, all still illegal in Spain. This lead to Sánchez having to keep her private life very private for her safety. However, she wrote alongside many modern new authors, dedicated to promoting new literary styles, but only as a man.

Sánchez worked for the as a phone operator at Telefónica, and in 1931, participated in the union strike arranged by the CNT (anarchist workers union), and ignited her passion for activism. In 1933, Sánchez gained a role with the CNT in Madrid, as their Writing Secretary, and edited their own journal, right until the start of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Her writing quickly established her as a feminist and addressed the urgent need for better equality in Spain. At that time, gender roles were extremely strict and went unquestioned. Sánchez wrote of how motherhood should not have to define a woman and that women deserved far better treatment. The anarchist movement praised equal rights, but it seemed as all talk and no action, with men who claimed to be anarchists still sexist in the home. Women still were forced into marriage and single women required a chaperone in public. Women still received half the income of men. The working class women were not receiving any benefits promised by the Second Spanish Republic.

In 1935, Sánchez decided to form the Mujeres Libres (Free Women), along with Mercedes Comaposada, a socialist lawyer in Madrid. They argued that social revolution and women’s revolution were the same thing; that women’s issues were everyone’s issues. They started their magazine, and were soon joined by Amparo Poch y Gascon, a doctor who believed in sexual freedom and the abolishment of double standards for women. The women felt that their contribution to the CNT was not being treated equally, and that sexism was rampant. At same time, Soledad Estorach in Barcelona started the Grupo Cultural Feminino, a group committed to equality in unions. In 1936, the groups came together and formed the Agrupacion Mujeres Libres, a group which would grow to 30,000 members.

The anarchists believed that women’s equality would be naturally created after the social revolution, when the working classes received better rights. However, the Mujeres Libres believed women’s rights could begin right away, and they created networks of support and reported on sexist issues within their unions. By the start of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, coinciding with the Spanish revolution, Mujeres Libres were already formed and prepared, so that women could participate in war fully, both in the revolution and as militia in battle. Sánchez and her team spread propaganda, radio news, and travelled to rural women to give them support.

In order for women to be free as the Spanish Civil War and revolution progressed, the Mujeres Libres organised schools, women’s only social occasions and a women-only newspaper, so women could feel safe and confident as their political consciousness was educated. Many working class women could not read or write, so Mujeres Libres set up classes for these women to attend, and women were trained as nurses for the ever-increasing wounded from the front. At the same time, they were taught about sexual health and post-natal care, to pass on to as many women as possible. Much had been denied to working class women in the past, and they finally started to receive basic help.

Mujeres Libres did not become part of the CNT or FAI, as they wished to be an independent anarchist group. As men left to fight at the front (along with many women, who are largely forgotten by history), the Mujeres Libres had women work-ready to fill men’s roles. While still stuck in female roles like cooking for the militia and nursing the wounded, women were also being training in shooting by Mujeres Libres. Also formed was daycare for children as women empowered themselves, and the children were educated in the causes their mothers fought to achieve. Mothers, in turn, received information on child care and development, for the better of the whole family. They also published their first Mujeres Libres magazine as the war broke out, being printed until the front reached Barcelona.

Mujures Libres had much opposition, as feminism does today, believing women cannot be a good mother and a good working woman. Their roles would always be limited to parenting. Many believed that anarchism could not work if women soughtto undermine men, even though one of their aim goals was an egalitarian society with freedom for all. As Mujeres Libres flourished, so did the man tears, who got scared and voiced opposition. To this day, no one has figured out why men are so scared of women.

The revolution broke down ten months after the outbreak of war, and the ability of the Mujeres Libres faltered. The inability to work together got the better of the left-wing factions, and the strength of the Nationalists slowly ate away at freedoms gained for the working class. Fighting and killing became the only activity in all parts of Spain.

Sánchez fled to Valencia and worked as a journal editor for Threshold, and met the love of her life, America Barroso. Sánchez became a member of the SIA (international antifascist union) and worked as their General Secretary, who supplied anarchist aid to the wounded and fleeing during the war. Sánchez and Barroso were forced to flee to France in 1939 as anarchists, but were forced out of there by Nazis in 1941. Sánchez did not have the luxury of anonymity and had to live quietly in Valencia, living with her ‘wife’s’ family, as all same-sex relationships were illegal, and fascism and Catholicism were raining down. Sánchez worked as an editor and Barroso worked at the Argentine consulate, until Sánchez died of cancer in 1960, aged 75.

Sánchez was buried quietly in Valencia with a headstone which reads –

¿Pero es verdad que la esperanza ha muerto? But is it true that hope has died?

This is not a detailed analysis, just a highlight of the Sánchez’s life. Things get lost in translation – Feel free to suggest an addition/clarification/correction below. The more the world remembers, the better. All photos are linked to source for credit