This morning the BBC Radio 4 programme, Sunday, devoted its edition entirely to the 90th anniversary of the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. If you can find it on BBC Sounds or elsewhere, I heartily recommend it.
The British historian Peter Preston related an incident of which Jan and I were entirely unaware, the evacuation of Málaga in 1937. The people of Málaga fled East from the city as the Nationalist forces threatened to overwhelm is Republican defenders. The fleeing civilians were bombed and strafed by German and Italian aircraft and fired at by Nationalist naval vessels. This atrocity, I discover, is known as the Desbandá (a word that implies a disorderly panicked flight from danger).
Preston referred to a book, Behind the Battle, by T. C. Worsley, a British volunteer ambulance driver who had gone to Spain with the poet Stephen Spender to assist the Republican cause. I found a Spanish translation of extracts from Worsley’s account in a chapter of an exhibition catalogue written by Preston. Here is my translation of a few extracts back into English:
“The refugees continued to fill the road and the further we advanced the worse their conditions. Some wore rubber sandals, but most had wrapped their feet in rags, some were barefoot and almost all were bleeding. […] We had travelled 120 kilometres ahead of a desperate multitude, dying of hunger and exhaustion and the river of human beings gave no sign of diminishing. Bethune [Norman Bethune a Canadian volunteer who had organized a blood bank] said: “Ten thousand, no; thirty thousand; forty thousand. Poor devils, we can only imagine their suffering.” […] Then they heard the buzzing of the bombers. The kerbside, rocks and the beach filled with refugees, who crouched face down in any hollow, pressing themselves against the ground. Children, lying flat, raised their eyes to the skies, their hands over their ears or curled into a ball to protect their necks, the most vulnerable point. Everywhere groups of people sought shelter; mothers close to exhaustion protected their children with their own bodies, pressing them into any recess or depression in the ground, pressing themselves flat on the stony ground while the planes roared ever closer. Bethune said: “These poor people have suffered other bombardments and know all too well what they should do.”
Worsley and Bethune decided to open the ambulance doors to provide shelter for children:
“Instantly we became the centre of a fevered mass of people who shouted, prayed and begged us at the sight of this miraculous apparition. The scene seemed unreal, with the vociferous faces of women who held their naked babies above their heads, imploring, weeping and sobbing with gratitude or disappointment.”
Preston quoted this passage on the radio:
The women’s eyes were full of puss and mucus, their faces stained with tears, dust and anguish. The babies that they held mostly had a small garment and their legs and buttocks, which were uncovered, were a mass of sores and infections. […] The lorry was full, crowded almost to the point of suffocation, and the people below were still surrounding us, begging and begging: “It’s not for me, comrade, it’s not for me that I ask. But take the child, save my child.”, “Holy Mary, save the little one”, “Mother of God, don’t leave my child behind”.
Imagine Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, Sudan. TODAY.
