a visit with eight spanish women

political prisoners of franco
by albert prago 

 

"The persecution of the women exposes most dramatically the depths of Francoist sadism."

A veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, Prago notes such wartime atrocities as "illnesses, humiliation, indignities, hungry, cold, social isolation, torture, and even death," are typical of all prisoners. His writing of the pamphlet serves to go beyond these "standard" atrocities and highlight the inhumanity of fascism against innocent women in Spain. Given his experience fighting in the war until being wounded and sent home to the United States in 1938, Prago's opinion that the worst atrocities were faced by women, is even more significant.

Most of these women were refugees, though it's noted that some were unlucky to be pursued merely for their relations to men who the fascists had gripes with. Prago even asserts that "[t]o write that many of those arrested were innocent is to assume that any were guilty of some crime." These women were arbitrarily imprisoned by the malice of fascist leaders who saw support for the Republican government as reason for incarceration. False crimes were alleged against these women everywhere they went, so that they were persecuted, tortured, and executed.

Cifuentes was given a sentence of 20 years for her allegiance to the Republican Spain.

It is important to note that children were included in this group, and were shown no mercy. Guards were instructed not to supply matches to women with which to boil the milk for their infants, and as a result many of the infants fell ill and died. Matches were not in low supply - it was the cruelty of the guards which empowered this rule, so that the women would be forced to watch their children die, as if they hadn't suffered enough on their own.

The stories of these women and their children touch upon how barbaric the Spanish Civil War, but war in general, is. "Crimes against humanity" would have been an accurate allegation against Franco and his regime. The imprisonment of innocent women and children in the war served no purpose but to demoralise the effort being made towards freedom.

The arbitrary war against innocent women in Spain is reminiscent of the same arbitrary blame and hate placed on the Jewish by fascist leaders such as Franco. This is possibly why Prago chose to cover the subject of women, as he also published many pamphlets and writings about Jewish volunteers in the Brigade.