The disruption of Malaga: the massacre of the Francoists

We are going to know the history of what happened in Malaga in February 1937, a repressive shame for Franco and fascism in general.But also, a deep dishonor in the history of the II Spanish Republic, who abandoned his fate to the city of Malaga.

The disruption was an attack on civilians by Franco's side, which occurred during the Spanish Civil War, on February 8, 1937, before the arrival of Francoist troops in the Republican Malaga.A multitude of refugees who crowd the road fleeing to the city of Almería, which was still a republican.This crowd, which fled from the capital, was attacked by sea and air causing the death of about 10.000 civilians, although the exact figure is not known.

The massacre of the Almería road constituted the most bloody episode of the Civil War in Malaga and one of the worst of the entire conflict.On what happened in Malaga, between seven and February 1937, there are very few documents and few testimonies of terror that occurred in the city.

The Republican Malaga

After the coup d'etat of July 18, 1936, in Andalusia, only Almería, Jaén and Malaga followed the legitimate government of the Republic.After the failure of the coup plotters,Malaga becomes the main objective for the Francoists, rather than because of their strategic importance for their importance and moral relevance.Since August 1936, the city is subjected to intense bombings, which cause dozens of dead and are terrified of their population.

Malaga was a strongly republican city and had been characterized by the force that the labor movement had acquired, especially the anarchist CNT and the Communist Party of Spain.Had an approximate population in those years of about 190.000 inhabitants.

In the general elections held in February of 1936 they had achieved the first deputy in their history by this province, leaving elected Cayetano Bolívar, which led to the fact that during this time it was called Malaga La Roja.There were several violent facts during these years due to social polarization, among which the burning of convents and the existence of constant political violence stands out.

Franco's aviation bombing Malaga

After the military coup of July 1936 against the Second Republic, the city of Malaga and much of the province were under republican control due to the action of the workers' militias, which managed to suffocate the coup.

Malaga's defense was based on 12.000 badly organized and equipped men were mostly peasants and volunteer militiamen distributed throughout the province.On the rebel side there was an army of 19.000 well -instructed and equipped soldiers, 10.000 regular third of Morocco and about 10.000 Italianos de las Corpo Truppe Volontaire de Mussolini.We must unite their aerial and maritime superiority.

The Italian troops of Corpo Truppe Volontaire of Mussolini had landed in January 1937, in Cádiz and were distributed between the provinces of Seville, Malaga and Granada.

The rural areas of Archidona, Antequera and Ronda are taken between the months of August and September 1936.The first refugees begin to arrive in Malaga, fleeing Franco's rebel troops and they are estimated to be about 35.000, which report terrifying facts, especially mentioning the third of regular Morocco who are attributed violations, looting and crimes.

To this should be united that the fascist general Gonzalo Queipo de Llano begins through the radio his psychological war against the civilian population of Malaga, where he not only recounts the advances of the rebel troops in front of the Republicans, but also launches the population ofRepublican areas all kinds of warnings and threats.One day he tells them:

“Our brave legionaries and regular have demonstrated to the cowardly reds, which means being a real man.And, at the same time, to his women.This is totally justified because these communists and anarchists preach free love.Now at least they will know what really men and not fags.They are not going to get rid that Berreen and Pataleen ".

During the first months of war, Malaga was practically isolated from the rest of the territory of the Republic since the only land that linked it and that was not held by the rebels was the Almeria road, which was vulnerable to the maritime bombardment andhindered the shipment of soldiers and provisions to the province.

In fact, this road was cut since the beginning of 1937, due to a large flood that occurred in Motril.Therefore, the authorities of Malaga acted on many occasions outside the decisions of the Republican government.

The conquest of Malaga

Malaga for her geographical situation was very easy to defend, you could only access by road and by the rest of the flanks it was surrounded by sea and mountains.His defense did not present great difficulties.

The problem is that from the RepublicanMadrid,Malaga was known as La Roja, because there were too many communists and anarchists and consequently he was not properly supported.As we have seen, there were 12.000 militiamen but they barely had 8.000 rifles and with total shortage of ammunition and with a total lack of artillery.

The civil governor of Malaga, Arraiz, was aware that the population of the city was misguided and very poorly fed.There was a certain anarchy in the city, because there was up to twenty -two committees, so disorganization was very wide.Defensive fortification was very weak and the military and political leaders had already fled the city, leaving it to the Albur of the rebels.Military escaped did not leave instructions to maintain resistance and be able to carry the evacuation of the city in an orderly manner.

On January seventeen, 1937, General Rebel Queipo de Llano launched a first offensive over the entire province of Malaga and its main objective was the capital.Marbella occupied in the west and, from Granada a rebel column took Alhama and the nearby territories.

Malaga asking for weapons at the Customs Palace against the coup d'etat

In these two simultaneous attacks there was hardly any resistance from the Republicans and caused a first exodus of civilians to the Malaga capital.However, the republican authorities did not believe that these movements were the beginning of a general campaign in the south and were not sent reinforcements.

On February 7, 1931, Colonel José Villalba was in charge of the defense of the city, however, leaves the city along with other military commanders, with which the rebels find the city totally helpless.

They had been offered to the Malaga Republicans that weapons would be sent to improve the defense of the city.

General Queipo de Llano, as we have seen, threatens radio daily, while preparing the assault of the city waiting for the Italian reinforcements of Corpo Truppe Voluntari and the Moroccan regular.The Italian black shirts gathered nine battalions in the north of the province, that is, about 10.000 men.

On February 3, the definitive attack against the Malaga city began, starting from Ronda.The rebel rebels found a loose resistance.He panic between defenders and civilians in Malaga for the fear of being isolated and given the possible repression, so many civilians and militiamen chose to flee on the Almeria road, which was the only escape route available available.This had not been cut, although it was at the mercy of the bombings from land, sea and air.

Rebel Army troops, in the siege of civilian population during "Disbandá"

The Italians took the sales summits of Zafarraya on February 6, from where they dominated any possible withdrawal on the Almería road.The evacuation of Malaga was ordered that same day and, the next day, the Italian troops entered the suburbs.

On Sunday, February 8, Francoist troops enter the city.At half past seven in the morning they enter the Torremolinos road and there are a semi -vaulted city, with the abandoned workers' neighborhoods.At half past nine, the Cánovas del Castillo and Canalejas gathered enter the port of Malaga.Italian columns from Antequera and Colmenar arrive at noon.At two at noon there is a parade of Francoist troops in the city center.

The disruption

On Sunday, February seven was Carnival Day.Malaga was frequently bombarded by rebel aviation, but in recent days they were more regular.In addition, many refugees from the peoples of the province were arriving.

Curiously, no Malaga newspaper informs that the city was already surrounded by rebel troops.The city panic and escape begins.

The wife of the Hispanicist Gerald Brenan, Gamel Woolsey, recounts in his book "The other kingdom of death", panic in Malaga:

“A sinister rumor that made us forget all the burning of houses and spread for the people:

The third, which comes the third!

Because of the tone of the voices that we heard in the street, it was as if they had said: hell, Lucifer and his legion are on us.This legion, worthy of Lucifer, was what they expected and the expectation ran like a cold wave of horror on the field.No one lay down, everyone was outside the road, watching the red flame of Malaga and trying to hear in the distance the steps of the enemy who approached ".

The morning of February 7, the Malagaños see from the city the cannons pointing it and that unleashes the panic and the phrase appears

What are the Moors!

The third of Moroccan regular who accompanied the rebel troops were preceded by terror, because they stood out for the freedom they had to violate women, and all kinds of violence.

It is estimated that there were tens of thousands who tried to flee, although the road was extremely difficult both by the bombings and for the fact that the road was in bad conditions at the height of Motril.

Many flee for their political or trade union militancy but many because nobody wants to stay to see what will happen.Fear drags the dough, also after hearing, what the rebel troops did with the defeated and also after listening to the radio harangues of General Queipo de Llanos.

The popular neighborhoods were empty, while people formed caravans on the Paseo del Parque and advanced towards El Palo and Rincón de la Victoria.

Arthur Koestler, who was a correspondent for the Daily Worker, described the next way the situation in Malaga:

Towards two in the afternoon the exodus begins from Malaga.The road is a river of trucks, cars, mules, cars, scared people that quarrels between them.This flood sucks and drags everything: civilians, default militiamen, the civil governor, some officers of the General Staff.Some strange rumors are run through Malaga;that the rebels have already occupied Vélez, the next population to the east, about fifty kilometers;The refugee river goes to a mortal trap.According to another rumor, the road is still open but under the fire of war ships and aircraft that machine the refugees.Nothing, then, can already stop the river: it flows and flows, and feeds incessantly of the streams of fear ".

At dawn of February 8, while the rebels take the capital, refugees arrive in Torre del Mar and it is the place where refugees are joined that come from the towns of the interior of the province.This road is stuck to the sea.

They are aware of the presence of war ships in front of the road and at the same time, rebel aviation begins to bomb them.The rebels justify these attacks because among them militiamen of the defeated fronts and political leaders of the left flee.

However, reality is very different because most of the militiamen had already left a few days before, when the different fronts began to fall.Those who were in the caravan were families that drag children and the elderly.

They participated in the bombing, in addition to the Franco and German Air Force, the Canary Ships, Balearic Islands and Almirante Cervera, as well as the Tanks and the Rebel Artillery.The Spain Air Squadron, faithful to the Republic, tried to defend the escaped with little success.The majority of peoples on the road to Almería did not help fugitives in fear of subsequent reprisals by the rebels, who continued advancing.

However, this same fear also made their homes leave many of the neighbors of these villages located on the Malaga coast;Such is the case of Lagos, in the municipality of VélezMalaga.The first rebel attack was in a set of houses in front of the sea where some survivors place the first ship bombings and aviation against the innocent population that fled on the road.On February 8 there was a landing of rebel troops in Torre del Mar, to try to cut the withdrawal of republican troops.

During this event, there was the intervention of Dr. Norman Bethune, which expressly moved from Valencia to Malaga with its blood transfusion unit to help the civilian population, which was being massacred.

For three days he and his assistants do Sise and Thomas Worsley helped the injured and helped in the transfer of refugees to the Almeria capital.This traumatic experience would lead him to write the story "The crime of the Malaga-Almería road".In it the following recounts:

".....What I want to tell you is what I saw in this forced march, the largest, the most horrible evacuation of a city that our times have seen ....".

“The same thing that happened on the Malaga-Almería road I have seen later, and I still watch it many times in the cinema and on television.He created that what they did in Malaga was like an essay of what later happened in other wars. Pero la primera vez que se atacó y bombardeó así a la población civil fue a nosotros, en aquella carretera: ocuparonMalaga y prepararon una trampa criminal a la salida".

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El diario británico “The Manchester Guardian" relata lo que sucede de la siguiente manera.

“The evacuation of Malaga began when its population knew about the difficulties of the fronts, but no one believed that the voluntary exodus was going to assume the character of an unknown human cataclysm in the history of Europe.Soon became a bloody reality.The road is hell bombarded by Spanish fascist ships and German and Italian aircraft...Soon the road was covered with death.

The caravan of thousands of people fills the band from Banda Banda;It advances with difficulty.Some prefer to do it at night taking advantage of the fact that there is a new moon or decide to throw field through to avoid the continuous bombings that are interrupted in this area of the coast.

The troops follow them closely and people begin to leave their belongings on the road, which is filled with packages, cars and the most unsuspected utensils.Horses and donkeys become the most coveted goods, to the point that some survivors remember to have witnessed clashes and even theft of these animals that, sometimes, collapse exhausted with tiredness.

The food begins to scarce and the sugarcane crops of the road become the only livelihood.The fields are razed to the passage of this human tide that also selects food in abandoned farmhouses.The people of the villages close to lime and sing the doors of their houses;There are few who offer help to refugees.

Nerja's path to the horseshoe, is the stretch with more dead by bombing.The road is twisted at the entrance to Maro's natural place.There are no longer crops to feed and the road, cut between the dangerous cliffs that fall to the shore and the background mountain appears as a perfect target.The crowd advances exhausted after two days walk.

The bombings are especially fierce in the Cuesta de la Herradura, where according to testimonies of the survivors, more normal victims are produced.Each attack of the airplanes or ships disperses the group in search of refuge.Upon returning to the road, there are many families to whom they lack a member.Then an distressing search begins that in some cases will never obtain results.Others, most, will be reunited during the journey or after the years.

The road is filled with screams and cries.Among the lost there are many young children.The Canadian doctor Norman Bethune, who advances with his ambulance collecting refugees, comes to count more than five thousand boys under ten years: the boys carried only their pants and the girls their wide dress .....Children with the little shots and legs entangled in bloody rags: children without shoes, with swollen feet, children who cried desperate pain, hunger, tired.

There are people who, exhausted, are abandoned to their fate in the gutters of the road.They are mostly elderly or pregnant.Bethune also records this: there were women who could not take another step: the blood of the ulcers of their swollen legs dyed their white espadrilles red.Many old ones left all hope and lying in the gutter of the road, they expected death.

The section of Nerja and Almuñécar supposes for many refugees the end of their flight.The families that advance more slowly or who later left Malaga see the way for the Italian troops, which prevent them from passing and are called to return to their homes where, they assure them, they will have nothing to fear if they do not have theblood -stained hands.In some populations such as Almuñécar buses are freight to take refugees back;others must retrace the journey on foot.

In some newspapers, photos of those who return and even affirm that these are Malaga who fled from the Republicans and that now, once occupied Malaga by the nationals, wish to return,.

Refugees who have not been intercepted by Italians continue their march.On his way, between Salobreña and Motril, he finds that the bridge that crosses the Guadalfeo river has been flown.The flow is very grown, although the exact reasons are not yet known today.For years it has been ensured that national troops opened a dam that was further north, however, that dike was built after these events;Even so, some small dam was released that supplied the fields of the area.What is confirmed is that this February was especially rainy and that the week before the escape the province was whipped by a strong storm of rain.

The river becomes, therefore, an almost insurmountable obstacle.Even so, there are many refugees who enter their waters to try to cross it;Some do it even at night and with their relatives in arms..This is one of the most referred to the survivors and where there are also more victims.Others dare us to cross the river and prefer to walk inside, where, according to some testimonies, there are a wooden bridge that allows them to pass to the other side.

The international brigades

The arrival of the international brigades that support the Republican government contains in Motril the progress of Franco and Italian troops.The front is established in the Sierra de Lújar, where it will remain until the end of the Civil War.The pressure of being persecuted disappears therefore for refugees who continue the way to Almería;The bombings have decreased in intensity.Even so, hunger and fatigue are as mortal and the shrapnel.The crowd advances without shoes, with the wounded feet of the long walk and gravel that covers the road.The jirs of clothing that are thrown along the way serve as improvised bandages to cover the wounds and keep moving forward.

Already on the Adra line, militian trucks begin to appear that collect those who advance in worse conditions.Among them is the ambulance of doctor Norman Betune, which describes in this way the scene that happens every time your vehicle makes its way between the crowd.

Our car harassed harshly ... refugees passed along the way, as if they didn't see it.They kept walking, with their eyes awarded to the ground as an unconscious symptom of exhaustion ....The women advanced slow with their dark dresses ... they had their face and eyes congested by dust and sun of days and raised towards us, in their tired arms, the body of their children.Take this

Look at this child!

This is injured!

Who were we going to get into the car?

To the child who was dying of dysentery or to the mother who looked at us silently squeezing the bare baby who was born on the road?

On Friday, February, the first refugees begin to arrive in Almeria.They are sheltered on the sidewalks of the city, in the port, in factories and in warehouses.In just a few days the city duplicates its population of 50.000 to more than 100.000 people.In the Red Socorro Hospital they receive medical attention, food and clothing.Although, those who arrive first still have to live another dramatic event.Franco's aviation bombard the city that same Friday.Among its objectives is to sink the republican battles.

As if it were not enough to have bombarded and gunned that peasant procession along its endless walk, when the small port of Almería was crowded with refugee people, fascist airplanes unleashed a large bombing of bombing.When the airplanes had moved away, I lifted the bodies of three children from the ground.The street looked like a true carnage (Norman Bethune).

Malaga refugees barely stay in Almeria for a few days.Boats are chartered from the city port and trains of crowded merchandise to Levante and Catalonia, even under republican power, come out, still under republican power.After the long walk, the Malaga still has a long journey ahead. Algunos volverán aMalaga terminada la guerra civil; otros se quedarán en sus nuevos destinos p saldrán hacia el exilio".

How many Malaga fled?

The calculations on the amount of escape from Malaga are confused and difficult.It is estimated that they were about 150.000 people huidas.The action of the Francoist army on the escaped on the Almería road caused about 10.000 dead, most civilians.

Caravan refugees live panic scenes against the attack of the rebels.They hide in the gutters, in the sewers, among the sugar reeds that are in the roads bound to the road.

Many of the escapes that arrived in Almería, about one hundred thousand continued in the city.However, other escaped from Malaga, followed on their way to the Spanish Levante, hence the difficulty of knowing the number of escapes.

General Queipo de Llano himself talked about a 250 flight.000 people.Much of the population of the capital fled, but it is estimated that they were joined between 60.000 and 90.000 from the western zone of the province, and another 50.000 that passed through Zafarraya to VélezMalaga.

Miguel Ángel Melero, a professor at the University of Malaga, acknowledges that on that escape he still costs numbers.Between 200.000 and 250.000 displaced although there are those who raise the figure to 300.000 and between four thousand and six thousand dead, as he collects Melero.This explains:

“La huida, el éxodo… el genocidio de la carretera deMalaga a Almería representa en nuestra provincia el episodio más trágico de la guerra civil, a la vez que uno de los más señeros y vergonzantes ocurridos en España durante el conflicto bélico de 1936-1939".

Hispanic Paul Preston makes the following story:

“The multitude of refugees who blocked the Malaga road had been in hell.They were attacked from the sea and bombarded from the air in a continuous machine gunning. La escala de la represión en el interior de la ciudad capturada explica por qué estos civiles estaban dispuestos a echarse a la carretera".

This constituted one of the greatest civil massacres of war, while one of the most unknown if we compare it with the exodus of civilians who were to come, such as that of the Pyrenees in 1939, or the most recent in time, consequence of the September 1936 Guipúzcoa campaign.

The rebel general Queipo de Llano recounted these events, on February 9, in his well -known radio address, he said:

“Malagueños, maricones, ponedle pantalones a la luna".Immediately to take the city, Queipo de Llano in his first speech said by radio: “At three quarters of taking the city, a part of our aviation told me that great masses fled to everything run to Motril. Para acompañarles en su huida y hacerles correr más aprisa, enviamos a nuestra aviación que bombardeo, incendiando algunos camiones".

The weapons sent from Valencia to the Republicans of Malaga never arrived and it is not known what happened.At that time, the division and disputes between the Republican military were already noticeable.It was true that the Republic had few resources in arms.In addition, the republican forces dominated Malaga did not coincide with the authorities governed inMadrid.Some historians talk that the Republic had to choose between defendingMadrid or sending weapons to Malaga.

The massacre of the escape of Malaga is one of the worst war crimes committed by the Franco army, which was distinguished by its cruelty and lack of respect for human rights and remained hidden for many decades.

Many of the bodies of this massacre were thrown into the sea and many remain buried in the gutters.Many of the dead were in Cañaverales.Some of those who fled, said it was difficult to walk and not step on corpses.Some said that from the ground the laughs of the sailors of the ships that bombarded them were heard.

This mantle of silence by Francoism is logical but difficult to explain.However, it is thought that the republican silence is due to the shame that meant the form of the surrender of Malaga without hardly resistance.

There is hardly any documentation that allows to clarify what step for the red Malaga to fall into the hands of the Francoists with hardly any resistance, and exposing the population to an uncontrolled escape and being easy white of the rebel troops both by land and by sea and air.

Doctor Norman Bethune has photographic documentation on the participation of German aviation, with the participation of his Heinkel bombers.

After the events of Malaga and its surrender, the Republic prosecuted the main military commanders of the city, which did not defend the square or its civilian population.However, there are few data from this process and the sentence is lacking.

Canadian doctor Norman Bethune

He was a famous pulmonary surgeon who impressed by the news of the Spanish Civil War, leaves his medical position and is ready in international brigades as a sanitary volunteer.While inMadrid, news of the fall of Malaga and the mass exodus arrives, and decides to leave for Almería to help refugees and join as assistants do size and Thomas Worsley.

He arrives in Almeria on February 10 and, he goes with his ambulance on the way to Malaga to help refugees. Lo que vio lo relata de esta manera en su libro “El crimen de la carreteraMalaga-Almería"

".... Lo que quiero contaros es lo que yo mismo vi en esta marcha forzada, la más grande, la más horrible evacuación de una ciudad que hayan visto nuestros tiempos…".

“The same thing that happened on the Malaga-Almería road I have seen later, and I still watch it many times in the cinema and on television.He created that what they did in Malaga was like an essay of what later happened in other wars. Pero la primera vez que se atacó y bombardeó así a la población civil fue a nosotros, en aquella carretera: ocuparonMalaga y prepararon una trampa criminal a la salida".

Those who returned to Malaga suffered the brutal repression of General Queipo de Llano.

Canadian doctor Norman Bethune

Francoist repression in Malaga

Between 1937 and 1940, it is estimated that about 20 were shot in Malaga.000 people y muchas de ellas se encuentran enterradas en las conocidas fosas comunes del Cementerio de San Rafael.They are estimated that there are about 4 buried in it.000 people, de las cuales ya han sido identificadas unos 2.800.This common grave is considered one of the largest in Europe

Las informaciones de los periódicos de la época, como “El Centinela" describen comoMalaga ya no era una ciudad, era una carnicería, con mujeres saltando por la ventana, olor a carne quemada o los fascistas tiroteando por las calles indiscriminadamente a gente indefensa.

Si seguimos al historiador británico Anthony Beevor en su libro “La guerra civil española", nos relata como de todas las ciudades que se habían resistido al levantamiento militar de los rebeldes.Malaga was perhaps the most punished by Franco's repression.Between the days and twenty -three of March 1937, more than 700 people were shot on the walls of the San Rafael cemetery.

Mass executions from Franco continued and did not end with the end of the civil war, but continued until 1955.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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