The Kiss of Death: Farewell Letters from the Condemned to Death in Civil War and Postwar Spain
2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 16; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/10848770.2011.556900
ISSN1470-1316
Autores Tópico(s)Spanish Culture and Identity
ResumoAbstract Right from the start of the Spanish Civil War, thousands of prisoners were executed by shooting. Today, many of them remain anonymous, but others, thanks to their writing, have passed into history. In the final hours before their execution, these men and women had the chance to write a few farewell letters to their nearest and dearest. These letters, known by historians as “chapel letters,” passed either through official channels exercising prior censorship or else were sent clandestinely. In their farewell letters, the condemned to death informed their families of their tragic fate and dedicated their last words to them. Genuine family relics, material and spiritual testaments, instruments of denunciation and propaganda, these chapel letters are regarded as the most sincere documents of any historical period. Since prisoners expressed in them their most intimate feelings and thoughts, they constitute the most exceptional testimony of all epistolary forms practised behind bars. By using an interdisciplinary approach this essay seeks to define the material and functional characteristics of this genre and to contextualise it in the framework of ordinary writings and scribal culture. Notes Notes This article, translated from the Spanish by Professor Martyn Lyons (University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia), is based on a paper presented in the workshop on “Ordinary Writings and Scribal Culture: The History of Writing in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” at the 11th International Conference of the International Society of the Study of European Ideas (ISSEI) on “Language and the Scientific Imagination,” University of Helsinki, Finland, 28 July–2 August 2008. It also forms part of the Research Project “Cinco siglos de cartas. Escritura privada y comunicación epistolar en España en la Edad Moderna y Contemporánea” (“Five Centuries of Letters: Private Writing and Epistolary Communication in Spain during the Modern and Contemporary Age”) (HAR2008-00874/HIST), funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of the Government of Spain, and directed by Professor Antonio Castillo Gómez. 1. Consuelo García, Las cárceles de Soledad Real: una vida (Madrid: Alfaguara, 1983), 122–23. Subsequent references to this work refer to the same pages. 2. Except for Antonia Torres Llera who was shot half a year later, on 19 February 1940. See Mirta Núñez Díaz-Balart and Antonio Rojas Friend, “Las Trece Rosas. Nuevas revelaciones sobre su ejecución,” Historia 16 XVIII/205 (1993): 22. 3. Besides Consuelo García, Soledad Real gave her testimony to other journalists and historians: Maribel García Soler, “Barcelona y la Guerra a través de una protagonista fiel al ideal de su juventud: Soledad Real,” in Las mujeres y la Guerra Civil española. III Jornadas de estudios monográficos (Salamanca, octubre de 1989) (Madrid: Ministerio de Asuntos Sociales, Instituto de la Mujer, 1991), 152–57; Fernando Hernández Holgado, Soledad Real (1917) (Madrid: Ediciones del Orto, 2001); Ricard Vinyes, Montserrat Armengol, and Ricard Belis, Los niños perdidos del franquismo. Un estremecedor documento que sale por primera vez a la luz (Barcelona: Plaza & Janés, 2002); Carmen Domingo, Nosotras también hicimos la guerra. Defensoras y sublevadas (Barcelona: Flor del Viento, 2006). 4. It is sufficient here to cite the creation of the Fundación 13 Rosas in 2004 (www.trecerosas.es) and the installation of various monuments in memory of, and in homage to, the young girls (including the commemorative plaque inaugurated in 1988 in the Almudena Cemetery in Madrid, formerly the Eastern Cemetery where they were shot); and the publication of books and articles (and the occasional novel) on this theme. See also Jacobo García Blanco-Cicerón, “Asesinato legal (5 de agosto de 1939). Las trece rosas,” Historia 16 X/106 (1985): 11–29; Fernanda Romeu Alfaro, El silencio roto. Mujeres contra el franquismo (Barcelona: El Viejo Topo, 2002); Jesús Ferrero, Las trece Rosas (Madrid: Siruela, 2003); Carlos Fonseca, Trece Rosas Rojas (Madrid: Temas de Hoy, 2004); Ángeles López, Martina, la rosa número trece (Barcelona: Seix Barral, 2006). Note also Verónica Vigil and José María Almela's 2004 documentary Que mi nombre no se borre en la historia, and Emilio Martínez Lázaro's 2007 documentary Las 13 Rosas. 5. Testimony of Enrique García Brissac, in Jacobo García Blanco-Cicerón, “Asesinato legal,” 14. 6. Blanca Brissac to her son Enrique, Ventas Prison, Madrid, 5 August 1939; for a full transcript see Blanco-Cicerón, “Asesinato legal,” 18. All the letters quoted in this article have been transcribed in such a way as to facilitate reading them. 7. Dionisia Manzanero to her parents and brothers, Ventas Prison, Madrid, 4 August 1939. See Carlos Fonseca, Trece Rosas Rojas, 283–84. 8. Carmen Barrero to her familiy, Ventas Prison, Madrid, 5 August 1939. See Jacoco García Blanco-Cicerón, “Asesinato legal”, 27. 9. Julia Conesa to her mother and brothers, Ventas Prison, Madrid, 5 August 1939. See Fernanda Romeu Alfaro, El silencio roto, 218. 10. For an account of repression and its mechanisms in Civil War and postwar Spain, see Alberto Reig Tapia, Ideología e Historia. Sobre la represión franquista y la Guerra Civil (Madrid: Akal, 1985); Michael Richards, Un tiempo de silencio. La Guerra Civil y la cultura de la represión en la España de Franco, 1936–45 (Barcelona: Crítica, 1999); Santos Juliá, Julián Casanova, Joseph Maria Solé y Sabaté, Joan Villarroya, and Francisco Moreno, Víctimas de la Guerra Civil (Madrid: Temas de Hoy, 1999); Conxita Mir, La represión bajo el franquismo (Madrid: Asociación de Historia Contemporánea, 2000); Julián Casanova, Francisco Espinosa, Conxita Mir Curco, and Francisco Moreno Gómez, Morir, matar, sobrevivir. La violencia en la dictadura de Franco (Barcelona: Crítica, 2002); Mirta Núñez Díaz-Balart, Manuel Álvaro Dueñas, Francisco Espinosa, and José María García Márquez, La gran represión. Los años de plomo de la posguerra (1939–48) (Barcelona: Flor del Viento, 2009). 11. Antonio Castillo Gómez, “Escribir para no morir. La escritura en las cárceles franquistas,” and Verónica Sierra Blas, “Al otro lado de las rejas. Correspondencia a los presos del centro penitenciario de El Dueso (Santander, 1936),” in Franquismo y memoria popular. Escrituras, voces y representaciones, ed. Antonio Castillo Gómez and Feliciano Montero García (Madrid: Siete Mares, 2003), 17–53 and 55–97, respectively; Verónica Sierra Blas, “En espera de su bondad, comprensión y piedad. Cartas de súplica en los centros de reclusión de la guerra y posguerra españolas,” in Letras bajo sospecha. Escritura y lectura en centros de internamiento, ed. Antonio Castillo Gómez and Verónica Sierra Blas (Gijón: Trea, 2005), 165–200. 12. Armando Petrucci, Writing the Dead: Death and Writing Strategies in the Western Tradition, trans. Michael Sullivan (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998), xviii. 13. Besides writing by those condemned to death in prisons and concentration camps, we should also include in this category the last letters written by soldiers to their families before entering the battlefield, suicide notes, letters by the terminally ill, and in fact all letters written by people who for one reason or another are about to die and which are the last written traces of their existence. 14. Jean-Jacques Goldman, “Avant-propos,” in La vie à en mourir. Lettre de fusillés (1941–44), ed. Guy Krivopissko and François Marcot (Paris: Tallandier, 2006), 9. 15. Piero Malvezzi and Giovanni Pirelli, Lettere di condannati a morte della resistenza europea (Turin: Einaudi, 1995). 16. Guy Krivopissko, “Présentation,” in La vie à en mourir, 30–33. 17. The number of Italian prisoners-of-war in the Great War has been estimated at about 600,000, of whom 100,000 died in prison or concentration camps. See Giovanna Procacci, Soldati e prigionieri italiani nella Grande Guerra (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 2000), 7. 18. Fabio Caffarena, Lettere dalla Grande Guerra. Scritture del quotidiano, monumenti della memoria, fonti per la storia. Il caso italiano (Milan: Unicopli, 2005), 111–69. 19. On this theme, see the excellent work by Renato Monteleone and Pino Sarasini, “I monumenti italiani ai caduti della Grande Guerra,” in La Grande Guerra. Esperienza, memoria, imaggini, ed. Diego Leoni and Camillo Zadra (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1986), 631–62; Annette Becker, Les monuments aux morts. Patrimoine et mémoire de la Grande Guerre (Paris: Errance, 1989); Claudio Canal, “La retorica della morte. I monumenti ai caduti della Grande Guerra,” Rivista di Storia Contemporanea 11/4 (1992): 659–69; Jay Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 77–118; and George L. Mosse, Le guerre mondiali. Dalla tragedia al mito dei caduti (Rome: Laterza, 2002), 79–118. For the Spanish case, see Paloma Aguilar Fernández, “Los lugares de la memoria de la Guerra Civil. El Valle de los Caídos: la ambigüedad calculada,” in El régimen de Franco, 1936–75: política y relaciones exteriores, ed. Javier Tussell (Madrid: Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, 1993), vol. 1, 485–98; Paloma Aguilar Fernández, Memoria y olvido de la Guerra Civil española (Madrid: Alianza, 1996); Luis Castro, “El recuerdo a los caídos: una memoria hemipléjica,” (http://www.nodo50.org/foroporlamemoria/documentos/luis_castro_nov2003.htm); José Luis Ledesma and Javier Rodrigo, “Caídos por España, mártires de la libertad. Víctimas y conmemoración de la Guerra Civil en la España posbélica, 1939–2006,” Ayer 63 (2006): 233–55; and Antonio Castillo Gómez, “Escritura, monumento y memoria. Las lápidas a los caídos del bando franquista,” in España en guerra: información, propaganda y memoria, ed. Verónica Sierra Blas, Special Issue, Cultura Escrita & Sociedad 6 (2008): 132–49. 20. Mimmo Franzinelli, “Ultime lettere. Scritti di fucilati e deportati della Resistenza. Appendice fotografica,” Italia contemporanea 237 (2004): 517–68; and Mimmo Franzinelli, Ultime lettere di condannati a morte e di deportati della Resistenza (Milan: Mondadori, 2005). 21. For an essential bibliography on last letters written in the prisons and concentration camps of two World Wars, see Adolfo Omodeo, Momenti della vita di guerra: dai diari alle lettere dei caduti, 1915–18 (Turin: Einaudi, 1968); Leo Spitzer, Lettere di prigionieri de guerra italiani, 1915–18 (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1976); Ils aimaient la vie: lettres de fusillés, ed. Étienne Fajon (Paris: Messidor, 1985); Adalgisa Serpellon, Lettere di caduti e reduci del Cadore nella Seconda Guerra Mondiale (Venice: Istituto Veneto per la Storia della Resistenza, Marsilio, 1986–87); Lettres de fusillés de Châteaubriant (Vers: Amicale Châteaubriant-Voves-Rouillé, 1989); Les fusillés du fort de Bondues: leurs derniers messages (Bondues: Association Souvenir de la Résistance et des fusillés du fort de Bondues, 1994); Michel Borwicz, Ecrits de condamnés à mort sous l’occupation nazie (Paris: Gallimard, 1996); Mario Avagliano and Gabriele Le Moli, Muoio innocente. Lettere di caduti della Resistenza a Roma (Milan: Nursia, 1999); Mauro Begozzi, Le mie ultime parole. Lettere dalla Shoah, ed. Zwi Bacharach (Rome; Bari: Laterza, 2001). 22. I have recently found another compilation of 120 chapel letters, written by the communist activists of Galicia. See Xesús Alonso Montero, Cartas de republicanos galegos condenados a morte, 1936–48 (Vigo: Ediciòns Xerais de Galicia, 2009). These letters were found in private archives and published in books edited by the PCE, such as Héroes de Galicia y España (Buenos Aires: PCE, 1949). 23. Represión de los tribunales militares franquistas en Oviedo. Fosa común del Cementerio Civil de Oviedo (Gijón: Asociación de Viudas de los Defensores de la República y del Frente Popular en Asturias “Rosario Acuña”, 1988), n.p.; hereafter cited as RTMFO. 24. Antonio Ontañón, Rescatados del olvido. Fosas comunes del Cementerio Civil de Santander (Santander: self-published, 2003), 14; hereafter cited as AO. 25. Jesús Cañones Cañones, Cartas ante de morir (Prisiones de Jaén, 1937–38) (Úbeda: Editorial Amarantos, 1998); hereafter cited as JCC. 26. Monks to whom letters were entrusted were responsible for the earliest publications of such correspondence. See Dioniso Rivas (Claretine), Bética mártir (Seville: Editorial Católica, 1937), and Bernabé Copado (Jesuit), Contribución de sangre (Málaga: Artes Gráficas Alcalá, 1941). The Claretine Fathers (Congregation of the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary) were founded by St. Antonio María Claret on 16 July 1849 in Vic (Catalonia). After he was appointed Archbishop of Cuba, Claret, together with Mother María Antonia París, founded in 1855 the Claretine Mothers (Immaculate Heart of Mary), the women's branch of the order there. The Claretines are usually known by their Latin name, Cordis Mariae Filius (CMF). 27. Thanks to the Archives of Popular Memory and Writing, though originally not designed for this purpose, there has been some progress with this work in Spain. Some form part of the Archives and Researchers of Popular Writing Network (RedAIEP), directed at the University of Alcalá (Spain) by Antonio Castillo Gómez and coordinated by Verónica Sierra Blas. For more information, visit http://www.redaiep.es. In addition, we must not forget the role played by special associations and organisations for the recovery of the historical memory of the Spanish Civil War and postwar period. 28. The DERD was the outcome of the merger of the Anticommunist Propaganda and Information Office (OIPA), set up on 20 April 1937, with the Special Issues Delegation (DEA), dedicated to antimasonic propaganda from 29 May of the same year, both subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior. See Stéphane Michonneau, “Les papiers de la guerre, la guerre des papiers. L’affaire des archives de Salamaque,” in Lieux d’archive. Une nouvelle cartographie: de la maison au musée, ed. Philippe Artières and Annick Arnaud, Special Issue, Sociétés et Représentations 19 (2005): 251; Josep M. Figueres, “La guerra del paper,” in Joaquim Ferrer, Josep M. Figueres, and Josep M. Sans i Travé, Els papers de Salamanca. Història d’un boti de guerra (Barcelona: Llibres de l’Index, 1996), 88. 29. Olivier Blanc, L′ultima lettera: le prigioni della Rivoluzione francese e le ultime lettere dei condannati a morte durante il Terrore (Milano: Sugarco, 1984). 30. On epistolary rhetoric and traditional tripartite structure, see Roger Chartier, La correspondance. Les usages de la lettre au XIXe siècle (Paris: Fayard, 1991); David Barton and Nigel Hall, Letter-Writing as a Social Practice (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1999); Verónica Sierra Blas, Aprender a escribir cartas. Los manuales epistolares en la España contemporánea, 1927–45 (Gijón: Trea, 2003); Carol Poster and Linda C. Mitchell, Letter-Writing Manuals and Instruction from Antiquity to the Present: Historical and Bibliographical Studies (Columbia, SC: South Carolina University Press, 2007); and Armando Petrucci, Scrivere lettere. Una storia plurimillenaria (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 2008). 31. Marcos Ana, Decidme cómo es un árbol. Memoria de la prisión y la vida (Barcelona: Umbriel, 2007), 103. 32. Gumersindo de Estella, Fusilados en Zaragoza, 1936–39. Tres años de asistencia espiritual a los reos (Zaragoza: Mira, 2003), 12, 72, and 192. A copy of Father Gumersindo's diaries can be consulted in the Capuchins Provincial Historical Archive in Pamplona, Spain. 33. AO, 341–42. 34. Felicísimo Gómez Villota, Cartas de un condenado a muerte, 1938 (Oviedo: self-published, 2000), 1. 35. Iñaqui Barriola, 19 condenados a muerte (Bilbao: Vascas-Argitaletxea, 1978), 14, 15, and 23. 36. Andrés Fernández Muela to his parents and brothers, Jaén, 5 November 1936, JCC, 164–67. 37. Manuel Hevia to his wife María, n.p., n.d., RTMFO, 232–33. 38. Fausto Díaz Padilla, Estructura y sentimientos de las cartas de los condenados a muerte (Oviedo: Universidad de Oviedo, 1991), 65. 39. José Perat Blasco to his brothers and mother, Joaquina Blasco, Zaragoza Prison, 5 August 1939. See also Gumersindo de Estella, Fusilados en Zaragoza, 265, and Jesús Castanedo Agüero to his parents and brothers, Santander Prison, 29 November 1939, AO, 150–51. 40. Manuel Ceballos Ugalde to his family and wife, n.p., n.d., AO, 158–59. 41. Francisco Temprado to his wife and sons, Guadalajara Prison, 21 May 1940, AO, 216–67. 42. Anon to his wife, Eulalia Iglesias, n.p., n.d., RTMFO, 216–17. 43. Joan Curto Pla to his wife Marina Daufí, Pilatos Prison (Tarragona), 19 October 1939. See also Josep Subirats Piñana, Entre vivencias. La Guerra Civil, las prisiones franquistas, la transición y la Unión Europea (Barcelona: Viena, 2003), 114–15. 44. Manolín to his wife, Modelo Prison, Oviedo, 27 September 1938, RTMFO, 234–35; Manuel Ruiz to his family, n.p, n.d., AO, 204–7; Andrés Fernández, Isidoro Martos, Manuel Díaz, Alfonso Díaz, Matías Moreno, Fernando de Sepúlveda, and Juan A. Delgado to their comrades, Jaén Prison, 19–20 December 1936, JCC, 164. 45. Alberto Albiñana to his children, Alberto José, María del Carmen, José Antonio, and María Teresa Albiñana Soto, Guadalajara Prison, 1 November 1936, National Historical Archive of Madrid (AHN), Causa General, Madrid, box 1,519, no. 2, vol. XI, no. 36, Guadalajara, “Antecedentes, Alzamiento Nacional. Ejército Rojo y Liberación,” document E.5.598.709. The letter is a copy of the original. 46. Manolín to his wife, Modelo Prison, Oviedo, 27 September 1938, RTMFO, 234–35. 47. Joan Curto Pla to his wife, Marina Daufí, Pilatos Prison (Tarragona), 19 October 1939. See also Josep Subirats Piñana, Entre vivencias, 114–15. 48. Fernando Sepúlveda Ayllón to his wife María, Jaén Prison, 5 November 1936, JCC, 175–77. 49. Román Velarde Martínez to his wife and children, n.p., n.d., AO, 222–25. 50. Ángel Pardo Galiano to his wife, Luisa, n.p., 17 November 1937, AO, 192–93. 51. Anon to his daughters Angelines and Dina, n.p., 7 March 1938, RTMFO, 208–9; and Sabiniano Argüeso Salceda to his wife Herminia, n.p, n.d., AO, 132–35. 52. Francisco Temprado to his wife and sons, Guadalajara Prison, 25 February 1940, AO, 212–15; Román Velarde Martínez to his wife and children, n.p., n.d., AO, 222–25. 53. Julio Prada Fernández to his wife and children, Santander Provincial Prison, 16 May 1938, AO, 198–201. 54. Narciso Gil to his daughter Olga, Modelo Prison, Oviedo, April 1938, RTMFO, 226–27. 55. Anon to his wife Eulalia Iglesias, n.p., n.d., RTMFO, 216–17. 56. Virginio Puente Coballes to his wife and children, Burgos Central Prison, 25 November 1939, AO, 202–3. 57. Alberto Albiñana Zaldivar to his children, Guadalajara Prison, 1 November 1936, AHN, Causa General, Madrid; see note 45 above for the full reference. 58. Eusebio Garrido González to his wife Angeles and sons, n.p., 10 July 1940. See Emilia Labajos Pérez, La casa de los geranios. Una huella discreta pero tenaz contra el olvido (Bilbao: Excritos, 2003), 182–84. 59. Ramón Concepción González, n.p., n.d., RTMFO, 212–13. 60. Dionisia Manzanero to her parents and brothers, Ventas Prison, Madrid, 4 August 1939. See Carlos Fonseca, Trece Rosas Rojas, 285. 61. Isidoro Martos Escudero to his wife Anunciación, n p., n.d., JCC, 151–53. 62. Anon to his daughters Angelines and Dina, n.p., 7 March 1938, RTMFO, 208–9. 63. See Patrice Michaud, “Place de l’épistolaire dans la vie des détenus: tentative de compréhension et d’interprétation psychologique”, in Expériences limites de l’épistolaire. Lettres d’éxil, d’enfermement, de folie (Actes du colloque de Caen, 16–18 juin 1991), ed. Alberto Magnan (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1993), 375–84. 64. Julia Conesa to her mother and brothers, Ventas Prison, Madrid, 5 August 1939. See Fernanda Romeu Alfaro, El silencio roto, 218.
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