Exhibition on the Children of the War in Gijón

Terechu · Post by **Terechu** » Thu Nov 25, 2004 4:02 am

Yesterday the City of Gijón inaugurated an exhibition on the 33.000 children who were evacuated during the Civil War. A friend of mine who attended the opening ceremony by the Mayoress said it was a very emotional event and that the exhibition itself is very good.

http://www.lne.es/secciones/noticia.jsp ... Seccion=35

[Art: If this link doesn't work, see my post about 10 messages down.]

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Ayer el Ayuntamiento de Gijón inauguró una exposición sobre los 33.000 niños que fueron evacuados durante la Guerra Civil. Una amiga mía que fue a la ceremonía de apertura oficiada por la alcaldesa me contó que había sido muy emocionante y que la exposición es muy buena.

http://www.lne.es/secciones/noticia.jsp ... Seccion=35

Terechu

[Art: Si este enlace no functiona, ver los en el mensaje mio que es 10 mensajes más abajo.]

Corsino · Post by **Corsino** » Mon Nov 29, 2004 10:24 am

I suppose they don't have records about which refugees were on which boats and the dates of departure?

Terechu · Post by **Terechu** » Mon Nov 29, 2004 11:35 am

I'll go by there this week and ask. I'm sure the organizations that provided the photographs and other data must still have some documents, although much was destroyed or confiscated during the Franco Regime. I'll see what I can find and let you know.

Terechu

Corsino · Post by **Corsino** » Mon Nov 29, 2004 11:48 am

Terechu
Thanks. I doubt that they'll have detailed records, but it might be worth a try. Although I'm sure that it was in the summer of 1937, I always wondered on what date and boat I was evacuated.

Terechu · Post by **Terechu** » Mon Nov 29, 2004 12:29 pm

Corsino, it was most likely after September 1937, which is when the battle of El Mazucu was lost and Franco's troops entered Asturias from the East, Gijón was bombarded, etc. We only had civilians and a handful of loyal Republican troops to fight them, you can imagine the rest.

The exhibition is called "El exilio de los niños" and the documentation and photographs have been provided by the "Fundación Largo Caballero" (he was the President of the Republic during the Civil War). They have an incredible historic archive, which was brought back from France in 1980.

http://www.ugt.es/fflc/menuexpo.htm

This is an itinerant exhibition, which has already been in Seville, Zaragoza, Bilbao and Madrid and is now in Gijón. I have been able to find the catalogue online, although it's only in Spanish and Basque, but it has pictures you may want to look at.

http://www.ugt.es/fflc/exponinos/f_exponinos.pdf

Terechu

Corsino · Post by **Corsino** » Mon Nov 29, 2004 2:58 pm

Terechu

I haven't memorized exact dates, but there was fighting in the province of Santander throughout the summer of 1937, so it's likely that they were evacuating Asturias during that summer too. Gijon fell in October 1937, so the evacuation couldn't have been too much after September.

Terechu · Post by **Terechu** » Mon Nov 29, 2004 4:47 pm

Corsino, there's got to be a way to find out. I was thinking that maybe we can contact the Socialist Party of your county, Aller, and ask them to look into their archives. After all the Republican Government and the Asturian Government were socialist and the Socialist Party was in charge of organizing the evacuations. They've got to know the name of the ship, the date when it set sail and the names of the children. What do you think?

http://www.psoe-aller.org/index.htm

By the way, you'll be surprised how many ships managed to break the naval blockade after October 20th and set sail from Gijón bound for French ports. It is estimated that around 2.000 Asturians reached France after October 20th.

Terechu

Corsino · Post by **Corsino** » Mon Nov 29, 2004 6:08 pm

Terechu

Actually, 2000 refugees are not many.....about one boatload. Several months ago I was reading on the internet the ship's log of the Almirante Cervera, which was in charge of the naval blockade of the northern Spanish coast. The captain was not only naming the ships leaving, but also estimating how many refugees on each ship. Usually, the estimate was between 2000 and 4000 refugees on each boat. Most ships rescueing refugees were English, and probably sailing for England.
A few months ago I located a man here in the US from Pin`eres, across the river from my birthplace. He seems to think that he and his cousin from Moreda were on the same boat as I was. He says it was a boat that usually carried coal, so it was probably a Spanish boat.

Terechu · Post by **Terechu** » Mon Nov 29, 2004 7:12 pm

Corsino, 2000 aren't much under normal circumstances, but these 2000 left the port of Gijon on fishing boats dodging a naval blockade and cannon fire! Check out this site, they name every boat that left Gijón during the blockade.

http://www.asturiasrepublicana.com/cervera9.html

Anyway, if you left on a coal carrier that narrows down the list quite a bit. There couldn't have been more than 15 or 20 and half of them belonged to Duro Felguera, the coal mining company, so they can be disregarded directly. The Gijón port authorities have lists of all ships that docked at this harbour for the last 200 years, I wonder if we could convince them to look them up.

Terechu

Corsino · Post by **Corsino** » Mon Nov 29, 2004 10:19 pm

Terechu
I'll have to e-mail Luis Galan (the man from Pin`eres) to see if he remembers the approximate date and more about the boat. He left together with his mother and sisters, so it's possible that through the years they talked about it and he knows more than I do. About the only sure memory I have is that it was warm weather, the boat left from Gijon, and landed at Bordeaux, France about three days later.

Post by **Art** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 1:40 am

The links in Terechu's first message no longer work. I think this is the one she was referring to:

http://www.lne.es/secciones/noticia.jsp ... umEjem=740

...and these more recent articles:

http://www.lne.es/secciones/noticia.jsp ... umEjem=741

http://www.lne.es/secciones/noticia.jsp ... umEjem=741

http://www.lne.es/secciones/noticia.jsp ... umEjem=741

By the way, Corsino, this would be another good opportunity to get some publicity for your search for the other children. I'd try contacting one of the other major newspapers in Gijón.

Corsino · Post by **Corsino** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 2:28 am

Art,
Thanks. those links work.
As far as more publicity goes, I'm still recuperating from the last round with reporters. I guess deep-down I'm not a publicity seeker, because I find it stressful to keep answering questions from reporters. So far, I've been willing to do it because they'll also write a little about the search, but I'd rather they write more about the search and less about me.
Anyway, Saul Fernandez from LNE wrote that he might be interested in more stories about other refugees from Asturias, so I informed the Llerandis (from Llanes) about it, but I don't know if anything will come out of it..

Post by **Art** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 3:10 am

Ah, that's an excellent idea, interviewing other refugee children. Any publicity will help.

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Ah, esto es una idea excelente, entrevistando a otros niños refugiados. Cualquier publicidad ayudará.