Tell Me Who I Am

by Julia Navarro

  On November 7, the secretary at the German Embassy in Paris, Ernst vom Rath, was attacked. When he died two days later, it provided the impetus for Germany’s infamous Kristallnacht. More than 30,000 Jews were arrested, 191 synagogues were destroyed, more than 7,500 businesses were ransacked... Albert James always said that the worst was yet to come, and he was right. The European powers did not want to admit that they were face to face with a monster, and they allowed all this to happen and to keep on happening...

  In the last days of 1938, it was as if everything were falling to pieces. In December, Franco started a large-scale military offensive against Catalonia, an action that all but decided the war in favor of the Fascists.

  A little before Christmas, Albert James went to Ireland. Although he was American, his parents were from Ireland and regularly went back home to see their many relatives. James’s parents had gone to Dublin and he wanted to spend the Christmas holidays with them there. I don’t know if my dear friend Pablo Soler has told you this, but Albert James came from a well-off family and had famous soldiers among his ancestors. James’s grandfather had served in Queen Victoria’s court. At that time, some of the other members of his family had important positions in the British government, I think that a first cousin of his mother had a prominent position in the Foreign Office, and one of his father’s uncles was in the Admiralty.

  Albert James’s departure made Amelia feel even more melancholy than usual, and on Christmas Day my parents, Danielle and André Dupont, invited Jean Deuville to have lunch with us to try to cheer her up a little.

  They spoke, as was only natural, of Spain. Negrín still thought that it was possible to resist. But it was not; that was wishful thinking on his part. Also, England and France thought that the only important thing was for them to appease Hitler, and it was Hitler and Mussolini who were Franco’s chief supporters outside of Spain.

  On January 26, 1939, Barcelona fell into Franco’s hands, but a massive exodus of refugees to France had begun a few days before. The French government tried to stop hundreds of thousands of Spanish refugees from crossing the border, but events overwhelmed them and they were forced to allow them entry.

  The most reactionary parts of the right-wing press published truly xenophobic articles about the Spanish exiles; I’ll let you see a few of them so that you can have an accurate idea of what was happening in France at that time.

  Albert James decided to go to the border to report on the influx of exiles, and asked Amelia to come with him as his assistant.

  “Four eyes see more than two, and you’ll be able to help me with the language. I don’t speak Spanish that well, and I can’t understand it when they speak too fast.”

  Amelia accepted without hesitation. It was a chance to get close to Spain, and she even thought to herself that she might meet one of her relatives.

  They arrived on January 28 and were met with a devastating spectacle. Women, children, the old, the sick, all were fleeing the Francoists. Desperate people, who were facing the abyss of exile without knowing if they would ever be able to return to their homeland.

  The French authorities were overwhelmed and improvised refugee camps in the Pyrénées-Orientales department. The first of these was in Rieucros, near Mende (Lozère); then there were more, on the beaches of Argelès and Saint-Cyprien, in Arles-sur-Tech...

  Albert James wrote one of the most heartfelt articles of his career; I still have some of the reports he published in the English press.

  Those days, Amelia was his interpreter, and they interviewed dozens of refugees who told them clearly about the suffering they had been through and how the war was definitely lost.

  On the night of February 5, just one day after Franco’s troops took Gerona, the French government found itself once again in the position of having to allow a new wave of refugees to cross the border, this time troops who abandoned their arms as they entered France.

  It was a miracle that in the middle of all this chaos Amelia was able to find Josep Soler and his son Pablo. She and Albert James were interviewing some refugees when she felt someone touch her on the shoulder. She turned round and saw Josep, holding Pablo’s hand. It was a shock for Amelia to see them there.

  “Good heavens, you’re alive! I’m so happy! And Lola?”

  “She didn’t want to come, you know how she is. There wasn’t any way to convince her to come,” Josep explained.

  “My mother says that she’s not going to let the Fascists throw her out of Spain,” Pablo said.

  Amelia took them to one side. She was shocked by how thin Pablo had become, and how old Josep looked.

  “The first thing we should do is eat something,” she suggested.

  “That will be difficult, the French are trying to stop us from splitting up,” Josep said.

  But Amelia was not prepared to leave Pablo and Josep to their fate. Money always works wonders, and there were class differences even among refugees. People who had money, or jewels, or valuable objects, or friends, had a chance to escape from the camps. Josep and Pablo had no money or valuable objects, but in Amelia they had found the best way of escaping from the chaos...

  Victor Dupont served himself the last glass of wine.

  “I think that’s enough for today. Perhaps we should call our friend Pablo Soler to tell us what happened next, he was one of the protagonists of the story, after all.”

  “I’ll do it as soon as I get back to Spain. It’s been a big surprise for me to find out that Professor Soler saw Amelia once again.”

  “Yes, of course he did. He’ll tell you about it. How about tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Yes, he’s getting into Paris quite early, so the three of us can meet up after lunch—if you have nothing better to do, that is.”

  Victor Dupont burst out laughing at my incredulous expression. He enjoyed having been able to surprise me.

  “Pablo and Charlotte come to Paris every now and then, and they’ve had this trip arranged for a while.”

  “They didn’t tell me anything...”

  “I know, but they didn’t have to, isn’t that right?”

  Whether it was right or not didn’t matter, so I obediently accepted Victor Dupont’s instructions and the next day met up with the pair of them at three in the afternoon. Well, the three of them, in fact, because Charlotte was there as well when I reached the Duponts’ house.

  “I won’t get in your way, I’m going out shopping, so I’ll leave you to it. I’ll be back at seven, is that alright?” Charlotte said as she left.

  “Alright, Guillermo, my friend Victor has got me up to speed about what he was telling you.”

  “I’m moving from surprise to surprise, professor,” I said ironically.

  “That’s what research is all about,” he replied, without giving any sign that he thought I was talking about him.

  “So you saw my great-grandmother again...”

  “I’ve told you already that I lived in Victor Dupont’s house.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And how do you think I got there?”

  “I suppose that’s what you’re going to tell me.”

  “That’s right,” Professor Soler replied.

  Amelia moved us into a room in the hotel where she was staying because she thought that she could convince the district officials that we were her relatives and that she could answer for us, but it was actually Albert James who found a way to overcome the French authorities’ resistance. James was a very important journalist, and nobody wanted to be singled out for special treatment in any of his articles in the British or American press. Even so, we were not sure that we would be able to escape from the fate of being interned in one of the camps.

  “I want you to tell me what’s happening, if the war is really lost,” Amelia asked Josep.

  “Do you think I’d be here if it weren’t? There is no point in fighting anymore, we’ve lost.”

  “But why?”

  “They had mo
re help.”

  “But we had the International Brigades, and Moscow,” Amelia insisted.

  “Don’t be fooled, we were alone. Europe turned its back on us, France and Great Britain have looked at what was happening from a good safe distance, without wanting to get their hands dirty. And yes, people came from all over the world to support the Republic, they were brave and sacrificed themselves, but this was not enough. Franco had the help of Italy and Germany, but also the help provided by Europe’s passivity. You can’t imagine what it was like at the Ebro, that’s where they really stuck the knife in. Thousands of us died, and thousands of them as well, but they won.”

  “He’s a good strategist,” Albert James said.

  “Who? Franco?” Amelia seemed shocked by James’s statement.

  “You know what, Amelia? It is impossible to beat an enemy if you don’t recognize his virtues.”

  “Virtues? How can you say that Franco has virtues? He’s a traitor to the Republic, he has destroyed Spain,” Amelia said angrily.

  “But given the result of the war he’s shown that he’s a good military strategist. To admit that is not to stop him from being a Fascist and a disgrace to Spain. Will you calm down if I admit all that?”

  “It’s not about admitting it as if you were doing me a favor, it’s about telling the truth.”

  “Well, let me tell you some more truths that you aren’t going to like. Everything that Josep says is true, but there are other problems as well, in particular all the energy that the Republican side has wasted in infighting,” Albert James said.

  Josep bowed his head. It was as if he didn’t want to hear what the journalist was saying.

  “What do you mean?” Amelia said sharply.

  “I mean that while the Fascist army had a single and clear enemy, the Republican side didn’t. Am I wrong, Josep, if I say that the Communists wasted a lot of energy in fighting the POUM, and that the arguments between Socialists and Anarchists and Communists were continuous? Who killed Andreu Nin?”

  “There have been problems, yes,” Josep admitted.

  “So, while Franco had a single, clear objective, to get rid of the Republic and establish a Fascist regime, the left-wingers were fighting him and fighting themselves at the same time. The worst aspects of people come out during a civil war, Amelia.”

  “You don’t know my country. Franco is a traitor, as are all the rebels.”

  “Yes, Franco is a traitor, but that doesn’t stop me from being right about what I’ve said,” James replied.

  “It wasn’t just because of our differences of opinion that we lost the war,” Josep insisted.

  “Of course not, that would be a simplification as well as a lie. All I’m saying is that the people who defended the Republic wasted a lot of their energy, energy that was extremely necessary for them because they were faced with a foe who was fighting them alone, and which was also backed by Germany and Italy,” Albert James replied.

  “What’s happening in Madrid?” Amelia asked worriedly.

  “Madrid is resisting, and parts of La Mancha and Valencia are still in Republican hands, but I don’t know for how much longer, I don’t think they can resist much more,” Josep replied.

  “I know... I know it is unlikely for you to have any news, but have you heard anything about my family? Have you seen Edurne, or my cousin Laura?”

  “No, Amelia, I don’t know anything about them, we spent most of the war in Barcelona.”

  “And what are you thinking about doing now?” Albert James asked Josep.

  “I don’t know, just live for the time being. What do you think Franco will do with the Communists?”

  Neither Albert James nor Amelia replied. Josep didn’t need an answer; he knew better than anyone what fate awaited his comrades.

  “I might join the Foreign Legion, they’ve told me that it’s the only way to get out of one of those damned internment camps,” Josep admitted.

  “But what about Pablo? He’s a child... he...” Amelia didn’t take her eyes off me.

  Josep shrugged.

  “He should be with Lola, she’s his mother, but things are how they are, we’ll get by.”

  Amelia convinced Albert James to help me and Josep; she wanted to try to get the French to allow us to move to Paris and thereby avoid internment. It wasn’t easy, because if there was one thing that the French officials wanted to avoid it was that the refugees would go to other parts of France, Paris in particular, but Amelia showed once again her talent for facing up to impossible situations. She had dealt with the Soviets in Moscow and had made them free Pierre, and now she wanted to rescue her friends.

  The hotel where they were staying belonged to a married couple with two children, the oldest of whom worked delivering fruit and vegetables in a small truck. Amelia asked him to hide us among the boxes of vegetables and to take us to Paris. She would go with us in case there were any problem. Of course she offered him a considerable sum of money, everything she had managed to save. The young man hesitated for a bit, but eventually accepted the offer.

  Albert James was unable to convince her that this was madness and that if we were stopped, even if her papers were in order, she would still be seen as a foreigner—a Spaniard, at that time the worst thing one could be in France—and might end up in a refugee camp.

  But we were successful and got to Paris without problems. Amelia took us straight to the Duponts’ house.

  Danielle did not know what to do when she opened the door and found herself face to face with Amelia, holding a child by the hand and flanked by Albert James and a stranger. She invited the strange group into her house, even though she looked at them with a certain degree of apprehension.

  When they arrived, the family was eating, and André Dupont and Victor’s surprise was even greater, if such a thing were possible.

  “Allow me to explain,” Amelia said, trying to smooth the situation. “Josep is an old friend, a comrade, and this is his son, Pablo. They’ve managed to escape from Spain. Franco won the war and I... I want to help them.”

  Albert James explained to André Dupont all the details of our journey from the south of France to Paris, and asked them to put us up until we could find somewhere to live. James himself promised to sort out our documentation that would allow us to stay in the French capital.

  André Dupont said nothing. He didn’t know what to reply, nor how to deal with the position in which Amelia and James had put him and his family. In the end he made up his mind.

  “Alright, they can stay for a while, but it is not a good solution.”

  Amelia sighed with relief and Albert James, discreetly, made a sign to Danielle and gave her an envelope.

  “It’s to help look after Amelia’s friends,” he whispered.

  “No... you needn’t... ,” she replied, a little upset.

  “Of course I should, you can’t take on something like this without any help,” James said, considering the question settled.

  Josep had to sleep on the sofa and Victor gave up a part of his room to that Spanish boy, an adolescent like himself, who had just burst in on the life of their family.

  The days went by, and Josep carried on insisting that his only means of escape was to join the French Foreign Legion. The only problem he had was me, he didn’t know what to do with me. On February 9, 1939, Franco passed the Law of Political Responsibilities, which was the first step in the long line of purges and persecutions to which the losers of the Civil War were subjected.

  But a worse blow was the decision of the French and British governments to acknowledge the Franco government that had been installed in Burgos. At about this time, at the end of February, Albert James announced to Amelia that he had to travel to Mexico. He had been asking for an interview with Leon Trotsky for a while now, and the Russian politician had finally accepted. He was living in Mexico at that time, the last stop on a long journey of exile that had begun in Kazakhstan, and had passed through Turkey, France, and Norway before landing
there.

  I used to go with Amelia to James’s office, and would sit in a corner quietly reading so as not to bother anyone. My father would go out early to look for work in order to keep us fed, and thanks to the help provided by some French comrades he got some odd jobs now and then. One day I was witness to an argument between Amelia and Albert James.

  James was locked away in his office writing when he received the phone call that told him when Trotsky was willing to see him. It was in ten days’ time, and he would have to reply immediately whether he was willing to go to Mexico. Of course, he didn’t hesitate.

  “Amelia, we’re going to Mexico,” he said as he came out of his office.

  “To Mexico? And why should we go there?” Amelia asked.

  “I’ve said that we’re going, you and I. They’ve just called me and Trotsky has agreed to the interview. You have no idea the strings I had to pull to get this interview. We have to be there in ten days.”

  “But I can’t go, and... well, I don’t think I’ll be very useful there.”

  “You’re wrong, you’ll be most useful of all in Mexico. You’ll interpret for me, like you did when we went down to the Spanish border.”

  “But Trotsky can speak French...”

  “Yes, but I don’t speak Spanish, and in Mexico they speak Spanish. I’m not just going to speak with Trotsky; I’m also hoping to interview the people who have given him shelter as well as his enemies in the Communist Party.”

  They argued for a good long while. Amelia didn’t want to leave Josep and me alone, but Albert James was inflexible and reminded her that travel was a part of the conditions of her job.

  Amelia told Danielle that she would have to leave, and that she would be away for about a month. She knew that leaving us with the Duponts meant putting them into a difficult position, but she had no other option and she couldn’t afford to lose her job with James. André Dupont didn’t like the news at all, but in the end he accepted Amelia’s proposal. When she returned, she said that she would find a solution for the problem, or rather, that she would take care of me, with all the consequences this implied, given that Josep was going to join the French Foreign Legion.