José Brocca
Almost completely overlooked by mainstream historians, there was also a vigorous element of pacifism, and the work of the Spanish arm of the organisation War Resisters' International (WRI) is almost totally forgotten in popular history and neglected by academics.
Similarly, and perhaps inevitably, the history of military assistance, particularly through the International Brigades, is far better documented than the role of people dedicated to non-violence, civilian initiatives and what today we would call non-governmental organisations.
A lifelong internationalist and political activist, Brocca was involved in setting up Escuelas Laicas (secular schools), an initiative which became part of the Republican policy programme.
Arnulfo, the eldest, found himself on the rebel side, rose quickly through the ranks, and eventually had a distinguished post-war career as a senior officer in the regular Spanish army, mainly in La Coruňa, before retiring to Huelva then Seville to live with his daughter and family.
[8] Throughout his life Arnulfo, the decorated war hero, veteran of some of the fiercest battles, and highly respected officer in the post-war army of Francoist Spain, spoke of his pacifist father as the 'greatest man who ever lived'.
It is regrettable, but the entire responsibility for the tragic and bloody days we are enduring lies with those who...have let loose destruction and slaughter to defend, not ideals, but out-of-date and hateful privileges, tending to a set-back to medieval barbarism' (quoted in Brown, 1937).
and in answer reproduced parts of a letter from Brocca in which he stated: 'In Barcelona, in Valencia, in the province of Cáceres and in Madrid I have acted, and continue to act, in such interesting tasks as stimulating, directing and organising the peasants so that instead of abandoning their agricultural work, even in those areas abandoned by the fascists in their flight, they work to avoid interruption in production and provision of supplies for the towns; in establishing and organising schools and homes for the children of those citizens who have fallen or who are fighting on the various fronts, and in general taking advantage of all opportunities to spread among the combatants our humanitarian ideals and our repugnance to oppression and cruelty' (Brown, 1937).
Helio, Irma and Olga were also there for a time, but were then sent, in the care of Brocca's sister-in-law, to stay with sympathisers in Rouen, until the defeat and occupation of France during the Second World War necessitated their escape from Normandy back to the south.
[11] The Prats-de-Mollo refuge housed children separated from their families, orphans and widows who had escaped from Spain; according to Hunter (1939), at any one time approximately forty people were in residence, and the care of an extra person would always take priority over the purchase of any little 'luxuries'.
Before the war he and Amparo Poch presented the Republican government's Ministry of Health with a plan for 'homes' that would be designed to shelter twenty-five children in the care of a surrogate mother and father.
After the Civil War had officially ended Professor Brocca refused to leave Prats-de-Mollo until all the children in his care had been returned to safety with their families in Spain.
Since Prats-de-Mollo was also the location of one of the large concentration camps set up by the Nazis in this part of occupied France, and since Brocca had been crossing the frontier repeatedly to contact and make possible the flight of anti-militarists and other threatened people out of Spain (Agirre, April 1996), it was clear that his life was now in even greater danger than ever before, and an offer of asylum in the UK was made at the instigation of prominent British pacifists such as Runham Brown, George Lansbury, Grace Beaton, Ruth Fry, and Lord Ponsonby.
Evidence in the written archives is sketchy about the period between Brocca's escape from arrest and his arrival in Mexico, but family testimony suggests that for some considerable time neither he nor his wife knew whether the other had survived.
In the early 1970s, with the gradual liberalisation that preceded the death of Franco in 1975, and Spain's subsequent transition to democracy, Brocca's widow Rosa García López was able to return to Spain, living for part of that time with relatives in Madrid and with her sister Maria García López who ran a small newspaper and magazine shop in Calle Ecuador, in the 'Casablanca' district of the port city of Vigo, Galicia.
Hunter views the close of the Spanish Civil War and the opening of World War II from across the Atlantic, and despite the desolate outlook in Europe sees some grounds for optimism in the work of humanitarians including Philippe Vernier (France), Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze (Germany), Pierre Ceresole (Switzerland), Muriel Lester (England), George Lansbury MP (former leader of the UK Labour Party) - and José Brocca, Spain.
The speakers were to be: Fidel Miro, for Libertarian Youth; Max Muller, for the Swedish Young Anarcho-Syndicalists; Professor Brocca, for the War Resisters' International; Dra.
