Nothing more usual than to find Spanish refugees of 1939 in the French Resistance as they continued their fight against fascism. Therefore, hundreds of Spaniards where caught in the nets of the Vichy Government and the Gestapo. They are imprisoned in the French jails (Toulouse, Montluc, Fresnes, Compiègne, etc.) alongside the French Resistant women. Both will be piled up in wagons to the camps of the Third Reich. Many ended at the women’s camp in Ravensbrück. Usually, the Spaniards were labelled “F”, “French”, because they were arrested in France. This “F” was part of the “red triangle” of the “political prisoners”. Some were even classified NN (
Charlotte Delbo
My purpose is to trace the rescue of a few hundred female deportees of the women’s camp of Ravensbrück (Northern Berlin) by humanitarian organizations of neutral countries during the particularly deadly weeks which preceded the fall of the IIIrd Reich. This story describes the rescue of the first deported woman who were liberated from the concentration camps between April 1945 and 1947, following the deceleration of transnational funds. Amongst these hundreds of women, I will attempt to highlight as far as possible the rescue of Spanish women who were arrested in France between 1942 and 1944 for their involvement in the Resistance.
The number of female deportees of Ravensbrück and its workplace satellites sites called
The number of French women in Ravensbrück is generally estimated at 8000, an estimate which included Spanish women whose supporting friendship association has now estimated at 400, which comprises 5% of the French contingent.
The Spanish refugees “arrested in France and speaking French”, affirmed Germaine Tillion, “were mixed in the mass of the French women and did not react differently”. From this point on, she would no longer make a distinction between them.
When I started this research about the “return to normal life” (a topic on which there is an extensive bibliography
Several reasons can explain this difficulty in identifying the Spanish women who passed by Ravensbrück: on the one hand, the Germans, who arrested these women in France and apprehended them as French. On the other hand, the French deportees themselves, like Germaine Tillion says, encompassed them in the French groups. Moreover, their names were usually gallicized (
The emblematic example of this presence-absence was given to me by the Nuremberg Process. At the hearing of January 28, 1946
“So, 600 women worked for 12 hours without any ventilation. All those who worked at the
The archives of three associations of the former Ravensbrück female deportees would help me in identifying the Spanish women: ADIR (1945), an acronym of the Association of Deportees jailed during Resistance already quoted as The
It was not until the 1970s that the Spanish women who survived –Conchita Boix, Lola Casadellà, Neus Català, Marí González et Carmen Ramos– began the general count. In 1977 followed the study of Montserrat Roig
It seemed necessary to explain further, as an introduction, the difficulty of identifying the group under observation – before going into the heart of the matter, in other words, the role of neutral countries in the liberation of deportees and the human-sanitary follow-up of the operation between 1945 and 1947. Only the anticipated evacuations will be discussed, that is to say, the ones before the liberation of the Camps by the Russians or the allies, sometimes lasting only a few days, but deadly days (
For the first part of this review, I will refer to the work of Sébastien Farré
Nevertheless, the last weeks of the conflict allowed Geneva to carry out several evacuations of French deportees brought in by the frontier towns of Kreuzlingen, on the German-Swiss border, and St. Gallen, on the Austrian-Swiss border.
The first truckload (5 April 945) from Ravensbrück to Switzerland of 300 officially French detainees constituted the counterpart for the release in France of 454 Germans (
It was necessary to cross-check to identify the Spanish women among these ghosts whose numbered list (exceptionally exhaustive) bore numbers followed by names:
N° 18 “Dupuy Demetria”. As it turns out she was Basque, born on 22nd December 1907 in Mués (Navarra); Mrs. Gaston Ganuza;
N° 274 “Fludia Rosa” was actually Roser Fluvià, Catalan;
N° 147 “Kerwich Laure”. This was Laura Gallart Marquès, born Catalan on 2nd December 1896 in Palafrugell (Girona). Like Geneviève de Gaulle, she had been part of the convoy of “27000” (27181)
Three out of three hundred: this is below the aforementioned representation threshold (5%). The Ravensbrück concentration camp was liberated by the Russian army on 30 April 1945.
The organization of a new convoy to Ravensbrück was hindered by the impracticability of roads between northern and southern Germany. The ICRC’s action would then move south, in this case to Austria and the Mauthausen concentration camp. We would find there the women of “NN” (Nacht und Nebel) of Ravensbrück transferred on 2 March 1945 to Mauthausen with the Gypsies (
The International Committee of the Red Cross carried out three transports of deportees from Mauthausen, which transported 780 deportees of French, Belgian, Luxemburg and Dutch nationality. The departure from Mauthausen, 22 April 1945, was done in 3 groups. There were the thirty officially French “NN”, amongst them, Denise Vernay, sister of Simone Veil. We shall see farther on that some Spanish women were part of it. A few days later, two new convoys ensured the successive evacuation of 183 then of 349 deportees from Mauthausen (
In the testimonies of the Spanish women, the evacuation by truck on 22 April 1945 offers little detail. I therefore refer to the testimony of Mari-Jo Chombart de Lauwe in
Arrival in St. Gallen on 24 April.
“A few days later, after having passed medical tests, the ablest will arrive in Paris on 30 April.” Violette Maurice also remembers the arrival in St. Gallen on 24 April “We were kept for a few days in St. Gallen to avoid the risks and to be fed gradually. Beforehand, an incident at the border had shown us the fragility of our lot...
The Swiss delegate Rubli is frankly critical of the border’ incident. The case was noted by
In the testimony of
“Finally, when we reached the end, night had already fallen. The border was closed, the Germans refused to let us enter Switzerland. Himmler came back on his promise to free us. Throughout the night, the trucks remained behind the crossing while the convoy leaders tried to extract a permission from the Germans. We were in anguish; Rather than return to where we came from, we preferred to fight, revolt and die here.
Finally, in the morning, the barriers rose, and when the last of the thirteen cars was on Swiss soil, sobbing, we sang an extraordinary Marseillaise, which made the Swiss themselves cry. We sang while driving to St. Gall where we met our comrades and Mom.”
We would tend to believe the Swiss delegate and follow Sebastien Farré, who had tried to show the difficulties of the delegates hastily sent on the field.
On 28 April 1945, the ICRC’s last early release transfer was completed
What about the Spanish women? They were present in the “NN” climbing on to the trucks of the Red Cross on 22 April 2015. I identified seven of them but this number is not exhaustive:
Bueno Vela Alfonsina (wife of José Ester, who would leave in one of the convoys just like Arthur London, Czech).
Da Silva Rosita.
García Carlota, known as “Charlie”.
Martínez Angelina/Ángeles who, according to
Martorell Herminia, born Rosales.
Zapater Aguilera Carmen.
Pintos Navas Feliciana, known as Mrs. Félicienne Bierge.
In summary, the ICRC’s contribution to the rescue of the deportees was “modest”.
As for the survivors, the physical and psychological scars threatened to last, so the ADIR provided nursing homes in French-speaking Switzerland, nine houses in all. The first opened in July 1945 and the last closed in March 1947 (
This initiative was instigated by Geneviève de Gaulle, and its execution was at the start the result of the testimonials of the survivors, especially their conferences –some illustrated by their drawings made in the camp– and also of the investment of the French colony in Switzerland. For the rest, Swiss private associations provided about half of the funding; the other half was provided by the
The
At the beginning of 1948, the tone changed: the ADIR bulletin deplored the end of convalescence, especially that of tuberculosis patients in Montana, and negotiated with the
The book
To stay on course, I will consider the homes that received at least one Spanish woman. According to the summary table of the authors of
Pilar Lubian, received in Nyon at
The following three convalescents were in the convoy of the “27000” party of Compiègne on 31 January, 194 including Geneviève de Gaulle:
Pérez J. was in Villars-sur-Ollon, at
Roger Neige, born Català, would stay for four months at Mont-sur-Lausanne, at the
Vidal Virtudes (“Carmen”), born Cuevas, was in Nyon at the
Everyone was satisfied with the welcome of the Swiss, even if some were reluctant to be so perfectly supervised, as this little remark of the secretary of the ADIR in the September 1946 bulletin implies: “The deportees are still tormented which is not always easy to manage”.
Now, let’s consider without further ado the aid of Sweden during the rescues of April 1945. At this time, the liberating crossings of the door of the camp of Ravensbrück would take place in the week of 23 to 28 April.
It was the Swedish Red Cross vice-president, Folke Bernadotte himself, who obtained the go-ahead, after a meeting with Himmler, the transport of 4700 Scandinavian detainees to Neuengamme pending their repatriation. At the end of April, with the participation of ICRC trucks, he organized the evacuation of 2900 women detained in Ravensbrück (
“Until the last minute, it was necessary for the representatives of the Swedish Red Cross to discuss with Suhren, the SS commander of Ravensbrück the permission to allow all the detainees to leave, in accordance with the agreement with the Swedish Red Cross”.
Let us reflect on the trajectory of the 600 French women –unless there has been an error, they were released from the camp of Ravensbrück by the Red Cross and conducted and cared for in Sweden before being repatriated. There were several columns of white buses,
One of the evacuees (“the revenants”) of the first convoy of liberation by the Swedish Red Cross,
The second transport left for Sweden on 25 April. On 28 April, a Red Cross car still managed to extract twenty-six patients from the camp.
In northern Germany, Sweden was not without difficulty carrying out its repatriation work,
It should be emphasized that all returnees by the
A French legation photographed each of them to create identity papers. Their list was broadcast on French radio and published in one of the dailies.
“Mid-June, airplane repatriations were organized. Every two days or so, fifteen to twenty women landed at Le Bourget before joining the Hotel Lutetia by bus. The last women returned in October. After several weeks of convalescence in Sweden, these deportees returned to their country in better condition than the other returnees.” (
All the survivors had experienced a highly human Swedish welcome.
There were also returns by boat, as Claude Bloch testifies:
“So we spent two months in Sweden. We were well cared for. Then we were taken to a mountain hotel. And on 14 July, we were reembarked on a line steamer in Gothenburg, round the British Isles, as the Pas-de-Calais was mined. We landed in Cherbourg on 20 July. And after the usual checks, we were brought back to Paris.”
Amongst the “French” returnees, one can include, some Spanish women; I could identify only four in the first convoy to Sweden where they spent a few months: María Beguiristain, born Guesalaga
It would be interesting to see what the ambassadors of Spain in Stockholm or Paris wrote to their Minister at that time.
During the following two years, Sweden and Denmark would not forget their evacuees either. Contacts were maintained and even a Swedish family offered to shelter a child.
In short: Jean-Claude Favez and Sébastien Farré were not wrong when they pointed out that the ICRC’s intervention for the liberation and rescue of women from Ravensbrück remained, rightly or wrongly, in the shadows of the one led by Bernadotte.
We will not delve into the punctual aid that the deportees were able to receive in France from 1945 to 1947 (such as the sending of furniture or medicines by the
We have seen that the fate of the Spanish women was inextricably linked to that of the deported women who were called the “Frenchwomen of Ravensbrück”. But while some returned to their own country, the others were accepted into a land of exile. Certainly these Spanish women were no longer the “undesirables” of xenophobic France according to the decree on 12 November 1938 since the decree on 15th March 1945 gave them the status of “political refugees” (without civil rights). One can imagine that the difficulties to overcome were more numerous for them; But the Spanish survivors would not write anything on this grey area. An example: this problematic stage of the “normalization” of life constituted only the short final paragraph in the book by
Diction, omission, fiction, silence. For Marcelle Soulier, of Clermont-Ferrand, there is no communal experience of returning to life, “each having had her way of exorcising the past”.
The historiography of the deportation of the Spanish women is slow to come. The 5000 Spanish women who died at the Mauthausen concentration camp have rightly monopolized our attention.
This article forms part of the project “European Humanitarian Aid in France during the Second World War”. Ref.: HAR2014-58043-P, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Gobierno de España.
In relation to the presented global estimation, see especially
I think of the memories M.-J. Chombart de Lauwe, G. Tillion, G. de Gaulle Antonioz, S. Veil, and many others. Among the essential works, I will remember here
The Germaine Tillion’s Study is based on the
Leonor Rubiano Fernández (03/07/1920–09/02/1945) passed through the Women’s Prison,
The only place where Germaine Tillion speaks of the Spanish women deportees but this in a general way:
The decision to dissolve the ADIR (1945-2005) was taken in March 2005 in order “not to pursue a great and beautiful story which could erode due to lack of combatants”.
It was only too late, once Franco died, that Ravensbrück’s Association took shape. See his genesis online
Between April 1 and May 15, 1945, the guards organized columns of evacuees by roads and railways. It leaves more than 200000, it comes back less than 32000.
Recalled that in 1995, on the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz camp, the ICRC regarded this episode as “the greatest failure in its history”;
For an example of negotiation, see
Farré specifies: 299 French and one Polish; this would be the Countess Karolina Lanckorońska, author of
In the convoy of the “27000”, that of Geneviève de Gaulle (27372), there were at least 5 deportees born in Spain: 27534 Roger Neige; 27181 Kerwich Laure; 27964 Ruiz de Angulo Elisa; 27244 Pérez Rita; 27973 Roques Marie.
“Theoretically all ‘NN’ prisoners (
S. Farré refers to columns 35, 36 and 37. The women transferred to Mauthausen obtained, after negotiations between the Red Cross and the RSHA (
Testimony of Violette Maurice,
In these expeditions slip off the officially French Spanish women. Thus would have passed by St. Gall, Segura Montes and Garcia Bayena. In
Testimonial Video of 120 min by
Feliciana, daughter of Justo Pinto Calvo and Eugenia Navas Muñoz, born on June 9, 1914 in El Barraco (Ávila), married in 1936 to Joseph Raymond Bierge (number 1285), transferred to Mauthausen more than two thousand deportees. See:
ADIR offers other places of convalescence, with no fee, in Nice, Chambéry or in the Black Forest.
“L’activité du service social”,
“L’activité du service social”,
Farewell to Swiss:
“Convalescence”,
Affirmed from 1946, in the first two issues of
I summarize here the journey that can be read in
The third survivor is Jean-Claude Passerat. See
Three times
Testimony of Béatrix de Toulouse-Lautrec (
María Beguiristain born in Zarautz (Guipúzcoa) on the 03/12/1907; Interned at Compiègne on 28/04/1943 and at Ravensbrück on 30/04/1944, Number 19425; Released on 23/04/1945.
“Convalescence” and “Chronique sociale”,
“Retour du Danemark”.
“Notre foyer”.
“Assemblée générale” (of 15 Dec. 1946).
See the works of Aurelio Velázquez Hernández on the Unitarian Service Committee (USC): “La ayuda humanitaria europea en Francia durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial”. Conference at Schweizerisches Sozialarchiv Zürich/UNED, 02/09/2016 (work in progress). The City Council of Zürich donated an X-ray machine to the Warsaw hospital in Toulouse, supported by the Unitarian Service.
The list of the 50 Spanish convalescents (mostly men), which followed one another from July to September 1947, included Neus Català (July-August 1947) and Mercedes Núñez (August-September 1947), as well as their future husbands. Two USC representatives, Draper and Jaeger, advocated in June 1948 the arrest of the center of Meillon “under the philo-communist influence of the Amicale of the deportees”.
Arrested in Spain on 10/11/1939,
The original Spanish version dates from 1984 (
In Spanish Bibliography on the Mauthausen Camp: J. Borràs; M. Fabréguet; E. Pons Prades; B. Bermejo and many others.