Spanish Civil War Tour: Not September 8th - 12th, 2013!

[britfrog]

I live near Perpignan where many hundreds of thousands of people were put into camps that are still there to this day , there is also a huge memorial to them on the coast. There is a huge spanish presence here (the region used to be spanish until 1750) I know many families here where the parents have never learnt french despite living here since the war !! and the kids have to translate everything for their parents. I know of a road where the refugees crossed the border on a farm track and as they got bogged down in their cars and vans they abandoned them in the mud leaving everything behind and taking only what they could carry to a new life, that track is still there with the cars etc just rotting away still up to their axles in mud!

However There is a side to Franco that not many know about ,, it was he who had the foresight to create the tourist industry in Spain, before him the coast was just empty, no hotels nothing. He realised that spain could not create wealth solely by farming, and there was precious little industry or potential industry, so he with government money built hotels all along the various coasts and then asked local families to apply to run them, through a selection process. If after a period of time (nominally 10 years) the family had run the hotel successfully then they were given the hotel outright! if not then it was put on offer with the result some families own several hotels, without this foresight there would never have been the tourist industry that has existed for the last 30 years.

[WIBO]

Have a look at this ride report I submitted...might be of interest?

Might need to register but it's a RReport to Belchite wikipedia it?


http://www.xt660.com/showthread.php?t=19305

[britfrog]

talking of Hanniball, I was once in a village called Joch about 30 minutes from here where He is documented to have visited, i was asked to sell a tower of the local chateau by a local resident which was really a corner tower with a stable on the ground floor, whilst kicking the rubbish around in the stable i kicked quite a lump so picked it up and discovered a saddle of sorts, took it outside to inspect it and found it was a leather covered, very old but ornate angular saddle in reasonable condition , i asked the owner if he knew anything about it after all the tower had been in the family for 400 years he admitted knowing nothing however having lived abroad for most of my life i recognised the sadlle as a camels saddle !! as it was semi v shaped with wooden ends, now what is a camels seat doing here??? if only that seat could speak!! sadly when i returned a few weeks later the seat had disappeared, apparently taken by the person who was renting the tower . was it from one of hanniballs camels???we will never know

[Simon_100]

I, like most brits, cant pretend to know much about the subject but you certainly have my interest. My old cadet SM was an International Brigade volunteer then moving on to what eventually became the SAS even fighting with Tito at one point. He was one of those characters that stays with you thru life and hopefully hand a hand in my early development. What I find depressing is the how the western media can ignore events which are 'unpleasant' politically.

Hi Herman,

Having read details about some of the actions the IB took part in I imagine lots of chaps found it hard to return to 'normal' life ( a relative term in 1939!) and if I was in chatge of any kind of comando brigade I'd have cherry picked all SCV vets I could find - even the communists!

Double plus about the tendency of the media to play down 'unpleasantness' - then as now!

Regs

Simon

[PaulinBont]

internatbrigade-1a-flag2006.jpg (13.48 KiB) Viewed 1648 times

Hello Simon
Well all I can tell you is that there was and where a lot of lives lost, also that a lot off people mostly men fled the country especially in Catalunya and Vasc regions.
Stories emerged well after Franco died that lost of men women and children where killed by the Franco troops and raids in isolated towns where quiet frequent to make sure that men didn't return home.

I had my grandfather and my uncle fled to France with other men in my town, they where refugees for about 4 years, their wife's and families had to work and bare the brunt of it all but they survived and when back home after the war.
Franco's era where dark times upon Spain and upon the people that live in Catalunya and Vasc countries specially and although the Galicians where and still now have a different language they where considered ok by Franco because he was born there, but no the other cultures from Catalunya and vascs alike.
Well I could go on and on about this but I can't be bothere in thingking about it, I was a victim of Franco's regime in the sense that my language was prohibited in those day and I was put in prison for talking my language in the street, that's how it was when he lived and rein there.

Good luck with that and if I'm available I will probably come too.
Cheers
Miquel

Miquel,

A lot of Catalan refugee children ended up in Wales during those times and their families still live here now.

Perhaps you can answer a question for me that was on my mind during my last bike trip to Spain?
I was wondering what reaction i would have from some of the people if I had a International Brigades flag on my panniers. Would there be any hostility?

[Simon_100]

I live near Perpignan where many hundreds of thousands of people were put into camps that are still there to this day , there is also a huge memorial to them on the coast. There is a huge spanish presence here (the region used to be spanish until 1750) I know many families here where the parents have never learnt french despite living here since the war !! and the kids have to translate everything for their parents. I know of a road where the refugees crossed the border on a farm track and as they got bogged down in their cars and vans they abandoned them in the mud leaving everything behind and taking only what they could carry to a new life, that track is still there with the cars etc just rotting away still up to their axles in mud!

Hi Nigel, thanks for this. I know about these places but not where they are - a good 'objective' for our ride out next week perhaps, especially the refugee trail! There's a special interpretation centre given over to the exodus at La Jonquera, which I guess I shoud visit too - but don't worry I won't force you to go there!

The Spanish/Catalan language thing is indeed curious. Here's another curiosity; a friend of mine had an aunt who was a child when the family went to France, and stayed. Over the years she 'forgot' her Catalan. But a few years ago she went down with Altzheimers and as the dementia progresed and she began to speak in Catalan - and mistaking the identity of her present family with those of her childhood - and 'forgot' her French.

However There is a side to Franco that not many know about ,, it was he who had the foresight to create the tourist industry in Spain, before him the coast was just empty, no hotels nothing. He realised that spain could not create wealth solely by farming, and there was precious little industry or potential industry, so he with government money built hotels all along the various coasts and then asked local families to apply to run them, through a selection process. If after a period of time (nominally 10 years) the family had run the hotel successfully then they were given the hotel outright! if not then it was put on offer with the result some families own several hotels, without this foresight there would never have been the tourist industry that has existed for the last 30 years.

Thanks too for raising this difficult subject, it's all too easy to see things from just one side - or the other! - and it's important to be impartial and avoid above all becoming political - after all, politics and religion have no place in a forum like this - and always to be aware that these same politics are very much alive at present day, so as 'foreigners' one has to treat a sometimes painful reconcilliation with the past with tact and respect.

For what it's worth: the Civil War and the Franco Dictatorship (1939-75) are distinct periods in history, separated by Franco's declaration that the War was at an end on April 1st, 1939. As the Civil War was a 'win or lose' event the what followed was 100% dependent on the outcome, however slow and inevitable that outcome seems to us now. If the victory had gone the other way (which was possible if the Battle of the Ebro hadn't been lost - Hitler and Mussolini had other priorities for their military hardware by then, to say he least, and Franco's army was nearly worn out) there would have been a whole different kettle of fish, a Stalinist/communist state in the West - now that would have been a turn up for the books!

But if the War has evoked memories for the likes of us imagine how much more sensitive issues raised by the Dictatorship are still to Spanish people today - see Miquel's (aka ReaperX) message above.

In short, it's worthwhile taking into account some of the positive aspects of Spain's history during that period - although perhaps the jury is still out on the development of tourist hotels down the costas - but we tend to either forget, or never knew, the extent of the repression and brutality that persisted right up to the end of the Franco period; the last political excecutions, by firing squad, took place in September 1975, just two months before Franco's death and when I was an impresssionable eighteen year old just moved away from home.

Spain's difficult transition to democracy - seen as a flawed success by many comentators - sidelined recocilliation by granting amnesty to the perpetrators of atrocities commited during the war (and beyond) and with sucessive governments, of all political stripes, not enforcing laws concerning 'Historic memory'. So the issue of memorials and sites of atrocities is still very much contemporary; with the planned exhumation of the poet Frederico Garcia Lorca's remains prohibited by a local judge as recently as three days ago!

So that's why I'd like to concentrate on the war itself and draw quite a strict line under the date April 1st, 1939. Phew, that was tough going for a Sunday morning - time to get my bike ready for the 'off' tomorrow

Simon

[Simon_100]

talking of Hanniball, I was once in a village called Joch about 30 minutes from here where He is documented to have visited, i was asked to sell a tower of the local chateau by a local resident which was really a corner tower with a stable on the ground floor, whilst kicking the rubbish around in the stable i kicked quite a lump so picked it up and discovered a saddle of sorts, took it outside to inspect it and found it was a leather covered, very old but ornate angular saddle in reasonable condition , i asked the owner if he knew anything about it after all the tower had been in the family for 400 years he admitted knowing nothing however having lived abroad for most of my life i recognised the sadlle as a camels saddle !! as it was semi v shaped with wooden ends, now what is a camels seat doing here??? if only that seat could speak!! sadly when i returned a few weeks later the seat had disappeared, apparently taken by the person who was renting the tower . was it from one of hanniballs camels???we will never know

Nice one Nigel - but do you reckon that wood and leather can last for nearly 2,300 years? If you've got the textbooks we should try and map Hannibal's journey during the next few, in between cooking supper for Mrs Britfrog of course :laugh: (I'm serious, point me to the pinnie!) My files tell me that the Roman historian Polibius noted that Hannibal’s route led through zones occupied by tribes called Arenosis and Andosins, which are now believed to be the Val d’Aran and Andorra.

Regs

Simon

[Simon_100]

internatbrigade-1a-flag2006.jpg

Miquel,

A lot of Catalan refugee children ended up in Wales during those times and their families still live here now.

Hi PaulinBont,

Do you have details of these families, a book reference or web page, that I could pass on to a friend who's writing a book about the war and its aftermath from the Catalan perspective?

Ta

Perhaps you can answer a question for me that was on my mind during my last bike trip to Spain?
I was wondering what reaction i would have from some of the people if I had a International Brigades flag on my panniers. Would there be any hostility?

Well, you asked Miquel this, quite rightly, so the final verdict should go to him. But for my twopenn'th I'd be a bit careful. Flags and their symbolism are taken very seriously here but if you have a 'right' to bear a flag, which I guess you have, then you can justify this if anyone asks you about it.

But I wouldn't leave your bike decked out like this in the car park while you visit the Valle de Los Caidos - that isn't a joke!

Simon

[davsato]

...... What I find depressing is the how the western media can ignore events which are 'unpleasant' politically.....

happens all the time.
genocide in rwanda? robert mugabe? who cares, they dont have any oil.
iraq invades saudi? WW3. george and tony need re-electing? lets invent "WMD"s and invade iraq

who was it who said "history is written by the victors" or along those lines?

civil wars are seldom neatly "north vs south" like america. town against town, even house against house, a right mess up and down the country. all we ever get told about the spanish civil war is that it happened on such and such dates, and thats it.
this thread has made me curious, i just bought "homage to catalonia" on fleabay

[Simon_100]

...... What I find depressing is the how the western media can ignore events which are 'unpleasant' politically.....

happens all the time.
genocide in rwanda? robert mugabe? who cares, they dont have any oil.
iraq invades saudi? WW3. george and tony need re-electing? lets invent "WMD"s and invade iraq

who was it who said "history is written by the victors" or along those lines?

Couldn't agree more Matey. Here's a quote on the same lines from George Orwell, whose experiences in Spain are directly related to his '1984'

"And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed -if all records told the same tale — then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.' And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. 'Reality control', they called it: in Newspeak, 'doublethink'."

civil wars are seldom neatly "north vs south" like america. town against town, even house against house, a right mess up and down the country. all we ever get told about the spanish civil war is that it happened on such and such dates, and thats it.

This is true in Spain too. It's on the school curriculum all right, but this is so long and needlessly complicated that there's never enough time in class to reach it - the kids get up to about the time of the Peninsula War of 1807-14 (in Spain this is 'The War of Independence') and then it's time for the summer holidays! :whistle:

Regs

Simon