We had been heading downhill for what seemed an unending ordeal, and as dawn at last approached, we quietly entered a town that was most assuredly asleep. Our guides led us into a tavern in the middle of Puigcerdà—just barely inside Spain—actually only about six miles southeast from our starting point. We gathered several chairs together as a barricade, in the main dining room of the inn, and immediately fell asleep behind them. When we awoke, daylight penetrated the inn through the window shutters, but the shop was closed with most of the chairs stacked upside down on the tables.
It was November 30, 1942, and my mother, my sister, Anna, my brother, Willy, and I had made it to Spain. It must have been mid-afternoon when we awoke and rubbed the sleep from our eyes. The Spanish innkeeper then approached us and, in thickly accented French, inquired if we were intent on proceeding on our journey to Barcelona. After we paid for our first Spanish meal in French currency and ate our bread, we discussed our next plan of action. The two gendarmes had vanished by then and presumably returned to France to collect another fee for assisting another family in desperate need. At the start of our journey, my mother had paid our guide with some American paper money she kept in a hidden purse.
After resting much of the day from our night’s hike, we proceeded again under cover of darkness. The terrain was more even as we hiked downhill through woods and grassy fields. We trekked without seeing a soul. As dawn appeared, we stumbled onto a railroad track and followed it for two or three hours, presumably heading to Barcelona, many more miles down the road.
That’s when we were spotted by two uniformed men of the Guardia Civil, wearing the traditional tricorner hats that to me strangely resembled an old Corona typewriter. We became apprehensive because we had heard that those seeking refuge in Spain had generally been refused safe haven and were forcibly returned to France. It was subsequently related to me years later that many “passeur” guides—those aiding illegal immigrants to cross a border, as these guides were known—handed their clients over to the Nazis or their French militia partners after payment of their fees.
The Guardia Civil arrested and searched each of us and confiscated my mother’s purse containing the American banknotes along with all our other possessions, including Willy’s straight razor. Then they escorted us to a country tavern in the vicinity of Figueras—a town further east—where we were treated to dinner and were generously introduced to paella valenciana. We were cordially welcomed and advised by the innkeeper that paella valenciana is indeed a highly regarded national dish of Spain. We were then “invited” by the authorities to stay as their guests at the inn overnight.
The irony of Jewish refugees seeking asylum in a country where Jews had not been allowed to live openly for more than 450 years is, of course, noteworthy. Generalissimo Francisco Franco received substantial military backing from Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini and proved the power of modern weaponry during the Spanish Civil War. This support enabled the Generalissimo to become a dictator.
Celebrating victory in Madrid in 1939—when his bond with Hitler was at its peak—Franco declared that it was “the Jewish spirit which permitted the alliance of big capital with Marxists,” though he was not as rabid an antisemite as Hitler. Thus, after the defeat of France, Franco declared he was “ready under certain conditions to enter the war on the side of Germany and Italy.” Although Spain was too shattered economically and militarily after the civil war for another conflict, the Generalissimo was still itching to fight the Communists.
With the fall of France in the spring of 1940, thousands of refugees tried to escape to France’s closest neighbors—Switzerland to the east or Spain to the south. But Spain and Portugal closed the borders to refugees unless they possessed transit visas to another country. Refugees who entered Spain without proper documentation were either returned to France by agreement with the Vichy government or interned at the Miranda de Ebro concentration camp in the province of Burgos.
In July 1942, Franco was really close to delivering a number of Jewish refugees to the Germans at the border. But later, with the Allies gradually gaining ground, especially after November 8, 1942—with the Allied invasion of North Africa and Germany’s subsequent takeover of France—Franco must have seen the writing on the wall.
With pressure from Roosevelt and Churchill, Spain kept its frontiers open, stating its policy that all refugees without exception would be allowed to enter and remain. Jewish refugees accounted for about a fifth of all those who crossed the Pyrénées, whether they were refugees fleeing Hitler’s persecution or Allied soldiers returning to fight. Hence, Spain became a major escape route and was practically forced to tolerate Jews again. Spain and Portugal maintained that refugees would be allowed to pass through only if they had proper passports and end visas.
Gerona
The following morning, we were routed in separate directions: my brother, mother, and sister were incarcerated in Gerona—a city located about one-third the distance between the eastern French- Spanish border and Barcelona, about 23 miles south. I was taken to the Casa de Misericordia—the hospicio or local orphanage. Other refugee children were also moved there, and that’s where I met tall, spindly Georges Flasschoen, who was about a year older than I and well over two feet taller. When he told me that his father had served as consular attaché in the Belgian Congo where he was born, I expressed humorous astonishment that he was not black like all the Congolese people I had ever seen. We quickly became friends, as did the other French-speaking refugee children who had also been recently welcomed into Spain.
According to my mother’s passport which covered the four of us, we were citizens of the Persian Empire, which, at that time, was still considered a British protectorate. So as a Persian citizen, I requested assistance from the British Legation, and in due time a British representative showed up outside the solid fence surrounding the play yard of the hospicio. He insisted he could do absolutely nothing for me, but he kindly gave me several pesetas as pocket money so that I could buy a few things. Within a day, I had spent the money on roasted onions sold through the fence from a cart on the street. They were sweet and surprisingly good.
Miranda de Ebro
After leaving the orphanage, I was told that my brother had been transferred to the concentration camp of Miranda de Ebro, just south of Bilbao in northeastern Burgos province. That camp—in use from 1937 to 1947—had originally been designed to deal with enemies of Franco and his acolytes in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. The camp had been set up for a capacity of 1,400 internees, but at that time it was crowded with about 3,500 occupants. Initially, these were mostly French and Polish opponents of the regime and returning allied soldiers, but later its occupants were mainly Jews. The facilities were primitive in that they lacked much in terms of provisions and protection from the elements. Furthermore, the conditions were terrible.
Willy tended to be quiet, but he did relate that at one time he witnessed a violent disturbance he called a pogrom in that camp, where drunken Polish Catholic refugees whacked Jews with knives and chased them with hatchets. Nonetheless, the camp of Miranda de Ebro was still considered an excellent refuge— albeit a temporary asylum—for all the detainees fleeing the Nazis and their French partners.
Caldas de Malavella
My mother, sister, and I were transferred to a hotel in Caldas de Malavella, a small town with natural thermal waters that dates back to Roman times, located within the same geographical area about 23 miles from Gerona and 56 miles northeast of Barcelona. The town had recently been converted to a “forced residence” where women and children refugees were confined and lodged in several hotels retained by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. We simply called it “the Joint,” but now is better known as the JDC. This organization was founded in 1914 to help Jews during World War I, and it came to be the foremost source of sustenance and assistance for Jews to emigrate and resettle during World War II. The JDC was entrusted at that time with the care of refugees who were pouring into Spain.
It was Christmas 1942, and the hotel staff prepared a most pleasurable feast of Spanish fare, including arroz con pollo, paella valenciana, and turrónes, a superb nougat akin to what we call halvah—a confection originating in the Middle East made from crushed almonds or other nuts or sesame seeds, with honey and various flavorings such as chocolate. The hotels were clean, we were well treated, and we had relative freedom to move around. The accommodations had no private bath facilities, though a simpler alternative was available. This new experience turned out to be fun for me as a kid—a garden hose against the wall of a very large white-tiled room. I did complain of a toothache at one time, and the local dentist gave me a shot of anesthesia and without further ado forcibly removed the ache together with the tooth.
Georges kneaded a chess set from the soft doughy part of some extra bread and allowed a few days for it to harden into solid playable pieces. White bread was not readily obtainable, but the dark variety was handy for the purpose. He taught me to play the game, and as we had nothing but time, I spent much of it playing with anybody I could challenge. But it was not until I could devote more science to the game as I did several years later in high school that I learned to play competently.
Father Navarro, the chaplain of the orphanage in Gerona, visited from time to time to engage us in various activities. He introduced us to, and educated us on, the richness of the local lore and the Roman baths built centuries ago, as well as the countryside where Napoleon overran the locals. The padre was most engaging, friendly, tolerant, and gentle with all the children, and apparently he was well learned too, as he strove to speak a little Hebrew to one of the kids. He taught us to climb pine trees to gather cones for the delicious piñones nuts within. The padre treated all the children with utmost decency and respect, Jew and non-Jew alike. We always looked forward to an outing with him, for it was always a pleasure and an education to attend his talks.
Barcelona
After several weeks of replenishment in the spa town of Caldas de Malavella, the JDC arranged with the Spanish authorities to finance our relocation on January 28, 1943, to Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia (Cataluña) and the second largest city in Spain. It is the largest metropolis on the northeast coast of the Iberian Peninsula, with a rich history dating back more than 2,000 years. Even as Spain was devastated by the civil war, Franco abolished the autonomous institutions of Catalonia and suppressed the use of the Catalan language in public life. I have heard from a Catalan friend that the province had been called “the reluctant bride of Spain”—and has fostered a strong sense of nationalism with the revival of local folklore such as dancing the sardana.
We were initially lodged at a pensión on Via Layetana, where we had two furnished clean bedrooms with linens. Meals were served regularly at fixed times in the dining room, where we would convene with other guests. We would soon become acquainted with even more delightful and tasty Spanish and Catalan gastronomic fare, even though the country was itself still in its fourth year of slow recovery from a most devastating, traumatic, and cruel civil war.
During her stay in the jail of Gerona, Anna befriended a young local woman with the lovely name of Carmen who had also been confined for a month for not rendering the raised-arm fascist salute of “Viva Franco!” at an athletic competition. After her release, Carmen introduced Anna to several other young adults, and these new friends soon took Anna under their wings and became her new guides.
Once in a while, I would benefit from her friendships by accompanying them to a local dairy bar to taste tapas and nata (a Spanish cream) and other local delicacies, or attending the Barcelona Symphony’s concerts, which I enjoyed so very much. We soon learned some of the local Spanish traditions such as clapping your hands when you got to your building’s front door late in the evening to hail the sereno, a night watchman, holding a clanging bunch of keys to unlock the door. This eliminated the need for tenants to carry house keys.
In time, the JDC provided us with an allowance to find more private and reasonable boarding accommodations. We relocated to Calle Paris with a Catalan family of three: an artist, his wife, and a tall nice-looking blond teenage girl.
That setting triggered in me a new interest in art and got me to sketch in pencil or charcoal, learning from the painter—who had a particular penchant for Rubens. He gave me a new appreciation for Flemish paintings. I also learned Spanish from the whole family. One tradition in Barcelona was to leisurely stroll after dinner, late in the evening, on the Ramblas toward the statue of Columbus standing tall by the port and gazing outward to the seas.
Willy was released from Miranda de Ebro on March 17, 1943, and joined us at 126 Calle de Londres in Barcelona. He was thinner and even more reserved from the miserable treatment he received in that concentration camp. No doubt his release happened through the valiant efforts of Dr. Samuel Sequerra, who was director of Jewish aid with the JDC in Lisbon and who worked principally and openly in ill-disposed Barcelona.
One picture permanently etched in my mind that moved me immensely was the gentle fluttering of the glorious Stars and Stripes from the balcony of the American consulate on Plaza de Cataluña, a large square generally considered to be both Barcelona’s city center and the crossroads of its old and new town. In nasty contrast, a menacing swastika flag hung from the German consulate just yards away as an apparent challenge. I had no desire to visit the American Consulate then, but I visited the British Consulate many times and was taken by the many posters of Churchill with their greatly optimistic messages. I knew that Persia was a British protectorate, and I actually believed that it gave me license to avail myself of its services and protection, but I eventually realized that the Brits would not be helpful.
I often visited another pensión where many more refugees were housed, so that I could practice and improve my chess game.
While I was indulging in that new culture, Dr. Sequerra had been organizing programs to save children under 16 years of age and sponsored special groups as Corporate Affidavit Children to send to the United States. This, of course, meant that my siblings could not qualify, and I would have to go solo, leaving my family behind.
My mother enrolled me in one group under the United States Committee for the Care of European Children. She had me fitted for a new suit with golf knicker-style pants by a local Jewish tailor who had settled in Spain in 1933. This became a special occasion, because until then I had always worn short pants. It was a transition to adulthood. I was soon on my way, and the farewells went off with feelings of unrestrained optimism—but not without shedding a few tears. I found myself on the way to the railroad station to board a train for Lisbon along with a group of children; they numbered probably two or three dozen and ranged from toddlers to adolescents. Families wiped tears as they said their good-byes, not knowing whether or when they would ever see one another again.
© 2016 Michel Margosis. The text, images, and audio and video clips on this website are available for limited non-commercial, educational, and personal use only, or for fair use as defined in the United States copyright laws.