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-What's that? Your phone? -Yes, it' my phone, it has a video too.
-I see, so what do you want to know about? -Your birth and your early memories.
-I lived in Madrid with my family, grandmother, and the muchachas who helped in the house.
My first memories would be the bombers, the planes. They flew very low, I would see them from the table in our kitchen. In those days, planes flew very low. They were dropping bombs.
planes flew very low. They were dropping bombs.
-At night or during the day? -I remember this at night.
The first few times this happened, I went down to the basement of the building. My mother went down too, yes it was night because she was wearing a nightgown, that's what you go to bed in. She held my brother in her arms.
And my grandmother too, everyone running down the stairs. I grabbed my father's nightshirt, I remember the color was pink.
We stayed there until the planes left. Then we went back upstairs again. I don't remember a panic. No panic. I was very young.
Later, at other times, I refused to go downstairs and I wanted to stay in the apartment. I stayed with a muchacha named Mani, she was like another mother to us. She had been with our family since my father was a child.
I stayed with her on a little bench there in the kitchen, far away from the window but you could see the planes passing. Right there.
-And your parents went down without you? -Yes, they went downstairs, they left me with Mani. I stayed with her.
Later, another time,they dropped a fire bomb on the building. The roof of the building, it fell on the other side of the building. We lived on the left but it fell on the right.
All the young men in the building went up to put it out, because the fire trucks were not going to come. Including my father, he went up, he was thirty something, so he helped.
-And your father was a doctor? -Yes, yes he was a surgeon. I remember too the terror, the terror of the family. In these things, there wasn't much terror because there was so much action. You had to move, run, change places. But then, the terror of the family.
the terror of the family, for example when they baptized my brother. He was born in the French hospital. I remember the room, everything, the bed. -How old were you? -I was born in 1933...four years old.
There was fear during the baptism. If the military arrived, and they would go to hospitals, they would kill you for being Catholic. Well, we baptized him and nothing happened because they didn't arrive! They hid the baptismal clothes, they hid everything, any sign of Catholicism.
-I remember our escape from Spain. My mother, well, obviously she knew people. And someone she knew was connected to the Blue Legion within the army. They took us out in a car, my grandmother, mother, brother and myself. I remember it sadly because my father had to stay in Madrid. They would not let doctors leave. They needed them.
-This group, what was their name? -Divison Azul. Franco later sent them to Germany, or rather, Russia. -They came at night? -No, we escaped during the day. There were lots of papers, lots of passports and all that. They took us through France. Around Barcelona. Later, we reentered Spain through San Sebastian. In the north of the country, there wasn't war.
-The war started in Africa. That's where they were fighting, Franco was there with part of the army. He wasn't dictator yet, he had a military position. From there, they went into the peninsula of Spain. They got as far as Madrid, and the surrounding areas: Escoval, Aguila, Segovia. All those areas, they had war.
-In the north, there wasn't war. We were in Galicia, north of Portugal. First, we were in Lugo. Next, we had to move, I don't know why since I was young. We were moved to Colunia. That was a good place, with peace and relative tranquility. There were no problems.
-One day my brother fell into the basement and split his head open. I remember staying with my grandmother while my mother took him into the emergency room.
-Did you tell me about a lack of food in Madrid? -That's why we left Madrid, that's why my family left. There was no food, so they got us out. The food was very bad, and there was very little of it. That's why they took us out, that and the danger.
-There is an interesting moment. As you know, some of the other family left the country before the war. They were in France. They said, why not send me to Paris since there was food. So I left with my father to go to Vallencia to get on a plane. We got there late.
-Well, when we got there late, the plane had left. So I couldn't escape to France. If I had, I would have gone to the United States with them. Well, for whatever reason, God decided I was to stay in Spain with my parents. I was very young, when all this happened.
-Later, at the end of the war. The day that Franco's troops entered Madrid and the war was over, my mother immediately went into Madrid to find my father. Later, my father came to Valencia to see the family. Also Mani, she was another family member of course. Then we returned to Madrid. The war ended let me see, 1939, I think we were back in 1940. I don't remember exactly.
-I hear many horrors of the war. Your uncle, my godfather, they went to find him one night to "levar un paseo" which means take a walk. That's when they killed you. They came to your house, they took you out to the fields and they killed you. They went to their house, he wasn't there.
-They pressured his wife, said where is he. She gave in and told them he was at our house. Before the soldiers arrived, she called us to warn us. So, Tio Anton escaped on the roof. Jumping from one to the next. He couldn't go out the door, in case the soldiers arrived.
-My father saw the sadness and loneliness of Madrid during the war. And the sadness of going to the morgue, where they took the people they had killed and the ones who had died in bombings. He had to identify cadavers. Madrid was full of Russian military people. Not foot soldiers, but commanders.
-The Russians stayed in the hospital where my father worked. -The same hospital? -Yes. Of course. The same hospital. Well, anyhow, the war ended, we returned to Madrid. Then, after the war there was food again. It was still difficult, very difficult, there were rations.
-Everyone had a book full of stamps. You used these to get food. For example, to get bread, they took out that day's coupon. There were different categories. I don't understand why they did that. My father could eat as much as the muchachas of course, but no, they got more. That's how we lived for quite some time.
-My father, he got food through someone he operated on. The man didn't pay with money, instead with spices. I went with him one time to Toledo. We would get oil, food. -Things you didn't have?
-Another thing I always say is we should thank Argentina. Their government. Evita Peron helped. Whenever we actually did have food, it came from Argentina. Argentina helped us tremendously. Years later, when I was a teenager, she came to Madrid. I don't know if you know about her.
-She started Peronismo. It was her and her husband, but mainly her of course. She arrived to Madrid and there was a demonstration in her support. It was incredible, I was about 14 more or less. They let me go to this by myself! Just me and my German friend.
-We went to the Palacio, and there on the balcony were Franco and Elita Peron. We could see them perfectly and the whole town was cheering with her. Thanking her for the food. -And I'm going to say thank you too. -Now, let's see who else you should talk to...