Daniel

It is completely anarchic and no-one knows what’s going on, anarchist militiamen, communist militiamen going all over the country shooting people who are bourgeois the local lawyer, the local priest, the local teachers, anyone with any standing. Burning churches, raping nuns, the whole thing. I’m not saying the others aren’t doing horrible things. I’m giving background to what happened to my grandfather. He is working in the fields and sees the lorries coming down to the village and he knew they were coming for the priest. Because they knew the war was happening. He manages to tell his friend to get on your horse and disappear because they are coming for you.

One of the men coming to kill him was a relative of his, to kill his uncle who was the local priest. The militiamen arrive, they realise my grandfather has told him to go away.

We came here to shoot someone so we will shoot you because you are obviously a fascist. It was like that. People got shot because they went into a café and said ‘good morning gentlemen’. Because to say ‘gentlemen’ was a class thing. It’s really complicated. It cannot be told. It is not politically correct.

My grandfather was taken away in front of my grandmother and my father who was only 3 yrs old. They were going to shoot him against the wall.

He manages to escape. To walk across the village. To cross into Galicia. He had cousins somewhere. He was in hiding for so many months. He sends a letter to my grandmother that he is alive.