Fleeing Franco

This is the story of how children escaping the Spanish Civil War were given a home in Wales. In one of the biggest mass evacuations in modern history four thousand children, crammed onto a dilapidated ship, fled for their lives. Parents entrusted their offspring into the care of strangers at a time of mortal danger. The year was 1937 and the forces of General Franco were advancing on the Basque city of Bilbao. In Britain a groundswell of popular feeling forced a reluctant government to offer sanctuary to the refugees. A few hundred of the children found a welcome in Wales where they were given shelter in all four corners of the country: Swansea, Old Colwyn, Caerleon and Carmarthenshire. In one camp there was trouble. Some of the boys, traumatised by their experiences, went on the rampage, an event that made headlines around the world. In Wales, in that most radical of decades, generosity towards the dispossessed greatly outweighed any meanness of spirit. With the backing of the Miner’s Federation and with the overwhelming support of the wider community the children were housed, fed and nurtured. At a time when the ordinary people of Wales were themselves undergoing terrible deprivation there was a tidal wave of giving. Under duress most of the children eventually returned to Spain but for some their exile stretched to a lifetime. There remain in Wales a handful of survivors of those events, witnesses to a depth of solidarity that could not have been bettered.

The book tells the story of those incidents and events in the Spanish Civil War in which Welsh captains and sailors played a pivotal role. The focus is on the blockade runners at the port of Bilbao in 1937 and the evacuation of refugees from Alicante in 1939. The historical background in chapters 1 and 3 provides the context in which the actions of the Welsh captains are made meaningful. The brave exploits of Captain David 'Potato' Jones and Captain W.H. Roberts at Bilbao are described in detail as is the heroic rescue of almost 3000 refugees by Captain Archibald Dickson from Alicante in his boat the 'Stanbrook'.The tragic scenes when Republican refugees, fleeing Franco's army, arrive at the port of Alicante at the end of the Civil War are related with particular poignancy. The book champions the fight against fascism by the Republican government and exposes the cynicism of the Western democracies.The author writes for the general reader but makes reference to the major academic works. He uses information derived from archives and people both in Wales and in Spain.

Based on a true story, Brothers on the Run takes you on a high-velocity ride across pre-World War II Europe. In 1933, two teenage Jewish brothers barely escape death at the Nazis' hands, only to find themselves crisscrossing Europe as refugees whose survival depends on their luck, daring, and wits. In 1936, when the US denies them entry, the boys enlist as foreign soldiers in the Spanish Civil War-a fateful decision that indelibly scars them, brutally delivers them into manhood, and serendipitously opens the door to freedom.

Combines historical and contemporary material. Draws on historical, sociological, cultural and literary approaches. Full revised and up-to-date edition of a classic book in the field. Covers the whole field in one volume.

Homage to Catalonia is George Orwell's personal account of his experiences and observations fighting for the POUM militia of the Republican army during the Spanish Civil War. The war was one of the defining events of his political outlook and a significant part of what led him to write in 1946, "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for Democratic Socialism, as I understand it." The first edition was published in the United Kingdom in 1938. The book was not published in the United States until February 1952, when it appeared with an influential preface by Lionel Trilling. The only translation published in Orwell's lifetime was into Italian, in December 1948. A French translation by Yvonne Davet-with whom Orwell corresponded, commenting on her translation and providing explanatory notes-in 1938-39, was not published until five years after Orwell's death. Book Summary: Orwell served as a private, a corporal (cabo) and-when the informal command structure of the militia gave way to a conventional hierarchy in May 1937-as a lieutenant, on a provisional basis, in Catalonia and Aragon from December 1936 until June 1937. In June 1937, the leftist political party with whose militia he served (the POUM, the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification, an anti-Stalinist communist party) was declared an illegal organisation, and Orwell was consequently forced to flee. Having arrived in Barcelona on 26 December 1936, Orwell told John McNair, the Independent Labour Party's (ILP) representative there, that he had "come to Spain to join the militia to fight against Fascism." He also told McNair that "he would like to write about the situation and endeavour to stir working class opinion in Britain and France." McNair took him to the POUM barracks, where Orwell immediately enlisted. "Orwell did not know that two months before he arrived in Spain, the [Soviet law enforcement agency] NKVD's resident in Spain, Aleksandr Orlov, had assured NKVD Headquarters, 'the Trotskyist organisation POUM can easily be liquidated'-by those, the Communists, whom Orwell took to be allies in the fight against Franco."

The last great untold story of WW II, describing General Franco's relationship to Adolf Hitler and proving that Franco was an ally of the United States and literally caused Hitler to lose the war. Further, at great risk to himself and Spain Franco saved over 40,000 European Jews who were fleeing Hitler when France collapsed.

Spain has for too long been considered peripheral to the human catastrophes of World War II and the Holocaust. This volume is the first broadly interdisciplinary, scholarly collection to situate Spain in a position of influence in the history and culture of the Second World War. Featuring essays by international experts in the fields of history, literary studies, cultural studies, political science, sociology, and film studies, this book clarifies historical issues within Spain while also demonstrating the impact of Spain's involvement in the Second World War on historical memory of the Holocaust. Many of the contributors have done extensive archival research, bringing new information and perspectives to the table, and in many cases the essays published here analyze primary and secondary material previously unavailable in English. Spain, the Second World War, and the Holocaust reaches beyond discipline, genre, nation, and time period to offer previously unknown evidence of Spain’s continued relevance to the Holocaust and the Second World War.

Despite antisemitic statements uttered by Franco, and despite Nazi-influenced antisemitism in Spain, thousands of Jews were saved during the Holocaust period by fleeing from France into Spain. Franco is also credited with a direct role in saving about 250,000 Sephardic Jews in the Balkans. Studies the historical events and Franco's attitudes and ambivalence, concluding that there is no clear explanation for Franco's actions.