There are nearly 900 of us imprisoned here in the old hat factory – all women and children. A concentration camp in all but name. Refugees, all of us, from the horrors of the White Terror and of Francoist oppression. Those of us who got this far are the lucky ones – so many died trying. And now that we are here, what do we have? Disease. Squalor. Xenophobia. Starvation.
It is yet another freezing February night and I wonder whether God Himself is in league with Franco, as His priests were, to make the winter of 1939 as lethal as possible for anyone who dares to oppose Him. I wonder, briefly, which piece of scripture made fighting for freedom and justice a mortal sin. No doubt an overly pious Cardinal in the image of Franciscan padre Junípero Serra would have interpreted the verses of God’s word to suit the regime’s purposes. After all Catholicism has, for centuries, been the rod of power and oppression used by the Spanish ruling élite to justify their morally bankrupt and criminal conquests.
I glance down at my sleeping daughter – only 8 years old – and try not to succumb to the anger and grief that threatens to consume me. Maria-Dolores, mi chiquita, no longer has her home, her friends or her father. He was executed, like so many who opposed that fascist pig, during the murderous Nationalist occupation that followed the fall of Barcelona last month. What she has had to endure since, the hell that she has witnessed, is unthinkable. It would be enough to make many grown men crack – and believe me many did – let alone someone of her tender age. No, I must remain strong if only for her. She is all I have, and I am all she has now.
In the dark hours of the early morning, the malevolent roar of the swollen River Aude outside the factory is punctuated only by the stifled moans of those poor souls with dysentery. The acrid stench of liquid shit is everywhere: there are only six working toilets for the entire population of this camp. The room next door, with windows only facing the river, room 9, has over 100 people crammed into it. Disease spreads like wildfire. Some say that the weakest and those least likely to survive are moved to this room since it can’t be seen from the road that passes between the factory and the village of Montazels. Out of sight, out of mind.
We sleep, or at least try to, on anything that we can get hold of. On tables, on the concrete floor, on old packing crates. Some sleep on straw, encrusted with human filth, spread between the iron manacles and rusty sprockets of the hat-making machines. Relics of what seems now to be an irrelevant era. Oh, to have the liberty and freedom to buy a hat!
The woman next to me, Bibiana, says this place is “the most sinister place imaginable”. She is not wrong – we are all hemmed in behind barbed wire and crammed into dark factory spaces occupied by machines, racking, ovens and storage spaces.
But at least it is not the internment camp at Argelès-sur-Mer, where Maria-Dolores and I first arrived in France. A sprawling mire of 100,000 refugees: the bodies of the living trying to survive for one more day, the bodies of the dead piled up everywhere. The ever-present terror that the malaria outbreak at the camp up the coast at St Cyprien would reach us. The dehumanisation endured by us all there at the hands of the French authorities and the confiscation – ‘legitimised’ theft – of the few trinkets and possessions that we had managed to bring with us. What a welcome after escaping the destruction of our homes, our city and our country, and after surviving the deadly fire rained down on us by Franco’s and Hitler’s Condor Legion. Not that long ago, Argelès and St Cyprien were part of Catalonia too – they were our brothers and sisters. Now a national border lies in the way and we are treated as unwanted foreigners and housed in conditions worse than animals. Sickly ironic, is it not?
Maria-Dolores stirs. As I look over to her, she opens her eyes and manages a small smile. The mask of serenity that I try and wear on my face belies the anguish I feel at seeing her in these conditions. “Mi reinata Maria” I say as I stroke her hair. She smiles more, and snuggles closer to me. “¡Mamá!” she mumbles softly; it is my turn to smile now. My little angel. “Are you hungry?” I say, knowing full well that everyone here is malnourished to the point of starvation. It is a futile question, merely a pleasantry, which reminds us both of happier times at home when food other than meagre rations of dried vegetables and potatoes was available.
“No, mamá”, she replies. She digs around in her dress pocket and produces a square of chocolate, breaks it in two and beams at me offering me a piece. My astonishment cannot be hidden. “¡Dios Mio Maria! Where did you find that?”. I gently refuse my half – how can I take that away from my child – but Maria insists firmly and pushes it into my hand. She always had a stubborn streak: in so many ways she is her father’s daughter. Loyal, loving, and at times utterly impossible! As I feel the sweetness melt inside my mouth, Maria says “the old man in the village took pity on us and pushed a few pieces through a broken window pane”. Perhaps evidence at last that empathy and humanity have not been completely forgotten in this age.
Maria smiles at the expression on my face, and I realise that this is the first time I have dared to let my emotions show since we were forced to flee. With that realisation comes some relief, and yet also a feeling of foreboding. I chastise myself silently for allowing myself to relax unwittingly since we are far from safe here. “Tell me a story mamá!” she says softly. “What sort of story would you like, mi cielito?”. “A happy one – about hats! Gabriela was teaching us today about how, before the war, this factory made pretty and beautiful hats that made people feel happy”. Ah Gabriela! A wonderful soul who is the glue keeping this community of vagabonds and pariahs together. As a schoolteacher from the Gràcia district, she also makes sure that the youngsters still have some education in the hope that, one day, they can put their knowledge to good use. “A story about hats?”, I repeat with doubt in my voice, “alright, mi bambina, let me think”. Maria smiles again, excited expectation showing in her eyes.
“Once upon a time”, I begin, “there was a kind and gentle man called Fortuné Peille who was a hat maker. He lived in Couiza, the village just over the river. Fortuné saw that the local hat makers – of which there were many! - could no longer make ends meet. Making hats was expensive and time consuming, and other hat makers in other countries could make cheaper, poorer quality, hats faster. This made Fortuné sad and he decided to do something about it.”
“What did he do?”, chirped Maria.
“Well, Fortuné was an inventor and a clever man. He made machines to make good quality hats more quickly! His ideas, at first, didn’t go down well with the other local hat makers. They felt threatened by the machines and by this new-fangled technology. But as time went on, and as Fortuné’s factory became successful, they saw that it was the only way to keep making hats locally. Fortuné made machines to make moulds to form hats. These machines helped to carve wood for hat brims but Fortuné also baked lumps of clay shaped liked hats in big ovens. With these wood and clay moulds, many hats could be made!”
Maria’s eyes goggled wide open as she imagined these mighty machines. “Where the hats pretty?”, she asked. “Oh yes!”, I say, “They were wonderful hats! There were Homburgs and Fedoras and Pork Pies for the gentlemen; Cloches and Buckets and Fascinators for the ladies. And my! The colours! The materials! They were hats that make you feel like a princess if you wore one! Fortuné had made his, and other people’s, dreams come true.”
Maria looks lost in these thoughts, imagining herself as a princess in one of these beautiful creations. Her eyelids start to droop a little, so I whisper in the hope that she may get back to sleep. “Fortuné carried on making beautiful hats for many years. He became known all throughout France and even in other countries too! He made hats for Tyrolean farmers, hats for lawyers to wear in court, hats that made people feel good. He made more and more fantastic machines to make felt, and to make strong fibres from wool. He used steam and electricity to power his machines – and everyone who worked with him enjoyed what they did.”
“Did Fortuné live happily ever after, Mamá?”. Dear little Maria is nearly asleep again now. “Yes, he did”, I said, gently stroking her hair, “yes, he did.”. “Will we live happily ever after as well, Mamá?”. “Of course we will, mi reinata, of course”, I reply hoping that my voice doesn’t crack and tremble as a tear rolls down my face.
Maria-Dolores is asleep again now and I am wide awake, staring at the iron framework in the ceiling of our prison. The cold from the concrete floor seeps into my bones; the river is still roaring and the stifled cries of pain from room 9 cut through the night air like a knife. “Will we live happily ever after as well, Mamá?”. How can I forgive myself for lying to her – but how could I say anything else? Franco has occupied Catalonia and rules with an iron fist. Daladier and Chamberlin have ceded Sudetenland – as if it were theirs to cede in the first place – to Hitler as a naïve appeasement in the hope of avoiding another war. Rumour has it that Hitler will ignore them and invade the remains of Czechoslovakia soon, and then what? That Nazi bastard will probably invade the rest of mainland Europe as well. And if that happens, there will be no “happily ever after” for anyone. Just war. Chaos. Death.
Sources
1. https://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2009/04/18/593913-couiza-un-enfant-de-couiza-honore.html
2. http://musiqueetpatrimoinedecarcass...-de-450-000-refugies-espagnols-en-france.html
3. https://quilldriverbooks.com/products-page-2/craven-street/a-cross-of-thorns/
4. http://audealaculture.fr/sites/default/files/Archives/guerre_d_espagne_refugies_espagnols.pdf
5. https://www.lindependant.fr/2019/04...mps-audois-de-couiza-et-montolieu,8130502.php
6. http://ffreee-retirada.blogspot.com/2017/10/voici-des-photos-de-la-chapellerie-de.html
7. https://www.ladepeche.fr/article/20...ee-en-hommage-aux-republicains-espagnols.html
8. https://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2003/10/28/194455-retirada-l-aude-exhume-son-passe.html
9. http://agevermeil.ek.la/l-industrie...et-a-couiza-par-roger-jean-juin-2011-a4212315
10. http://agevermeil.ek.la/les-initiateurs-veritables-batisseurs-de-couiza-a5009727
11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_(Spain)
12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalonia_Offensive#Fall_of_Barcelona
13. https://www.ladepeche.fr/article/20...-la-derniere-usine-de-chapeaux-de-l-aude.html
It is yet another freezing February night and I wonder whether God Himself is in league with Franco, as His priests were, to make the winter of 1939 as lethal as possible for anyone who dares to oppose Him. I wonder, briefly, which piece of scripture made fighting for freedom and justice a mortal sin. No doubt an overly pious Cardinal in the image of Franciscan padre Junípero Serra would have interpreted the verses of God’s word to suit the regime’s purposes. After all Catholicism has, for centuries, been the rod of power and oppression used by the Spanish ruling élite to justify their morally bankrupt and criminal conquests.
I glance down at my sleeping daughter – only 8 years old – and try not to succumb to the anger and grief that threatens to consume me. Maria-Dolores, mi chiquita, no longer has her home, her friends or her father. He was executed, like so many who opposed that fascist pig, during the murderous Nationalist occupation that followed the fall of Barcelona last month. What she has had to endure since, the hell that she has witnessed, is unthinkable. It would be enough to make many grown men crack – and believe me many did – let alone someone of her tender age. No, I must remain strong if only for her. She is all I have, and I am all she has now.
In the dark hours of the early morning, the malevolent roar of the swollen River Aude outside the factory is punctuated only by the stifled moans of those poor souls with dysentery. The acrid stench of liquid shit is everywhere: there are only six working toilets for the entire population of this camp. The room next door, with windows only facing the river, room 9, has over 100 people crammed into it. Disease spreads like wildfire. Some say that the weakest and those least likely to survive are moved to this room since it can’t be seen from the road that passes between the factory and the village of Montazels. Out of sight, out of mind.
We sleep, or at least try to, on anything that we can get hold of. On tables, on the concrete floor, on old packing crates. Some sleep on straw, encrusted with human filth, spread between the iron manacles and rusty sprockets of the hat-making machines. Relics of what seems now to be an irrelevant era. Oh, to have the liberty and freedom to buy a hat!
The woman next to me, Bibiana, says this place is “the most sinister place imaginable”. She is not wrong – we are all hemmed in behind barbed wire and crammed into dark factory spaces occupied by machines, racking, ovens and storage spaces.
But at least it is not the internment camp at Argelès-sur-Mer, where Maria-Dolores and I first arrived in France. A sprawling mire of 100,000 refugees: the bodies of the living trying to survive for one more day, the bodies of the dead piled up everywhere. The ever-present terror that the malaria outbreak at the camp up the coast at St Cyprien would reach us. The dehumanisation endured by us all there at the hands of the French authorities and the confiscation – ‘legitimised’ theft – of the few trinkets and possessions that we had managed to bring with us. What a welcome after escaping the destruction of our homes, our city and our country, and after surviving the deadly fire rained down on us by Franco’s and Hitler’s Condor Legion. Not that long ago, Argelès and St Cyprien were part of Catalonia too – they were our brothers and sisters. Now a national border lies in the way and we are treated as unwanted foreigners and housed in conditions worse than animals. Sickly ironic, is it not?
Maria-Dolores stirs. As I look over to her, she opens her eyes and manages a small smile. The mask of serenity that I try and wear on my face belies the anguish I feel at seeing her in these conditions. “Mi reinata Maria” I say as I stroke her hair. She smiles more, and snuggles closer to me. “¡Mamá!” she mumbles softly; it is my turn to smile now. My little angel. “Are you hungry?” I say, knowing full well that everyone here is malnourished to the point of starvation. It is a futile question, merely a pleasantry, which reminds us both of happier times at home when food other than meagre rations of dried vegetables and potatoes was available.
“No, mamá”, she replies. She digs around in her dress pocket and produces a square of chocolate, breaks it in two and beams at me offering me a piece. My astonishment cannot be hidden. “¡Dios Mio Maria! Where did you find that?”. I gently refuse my half – how can I take that away from my child – but Maria insists firmly and pushes it into my hand. She always had a stubborn streak: in so many ways she is her father’s daughter. Loyal, loving, and at times utterly impossible! As I feel the sweetness melt inside my mouth, Maria says “the old man in the village took pity on us and pushed a few pieces through a broken window pane”. Perhaps evidence at last that empathy and humanity have not been completely forgotten in this age.
Maria smiles at the expression on my face, and I realise that this is the first time I have dared to let my emotions show since we were forced to flee. With that realisation comes some relief, and yet also a feeling of foreboding. I chastise myself silently for allowing myself to relax unwittingly since we are far from safe here. “Tell me a story mamá!” she says softly. “What sort of story would you like, mi cielito?”. “A happy one – about hats! Gabriela was teaching us today about how, before the war, this factory made pretty and beautiful hats that made people feel happy”. Ah Gabriela! A wonderful soul who is the glue keeping this community of vagabonds and pariahs together. As a schoolteacher from the Gràcia district, she also makes sure that the youngsters still have some education in the hope that, one day, they can put their knowledge to good use. “A story about hats?”, I repeat with doubt in my voice, “alright, mi bambina, let me think”. Maria smiles again, excited expectation showing in her eyes.
“Once upon a time”, I begin, “there was a kind and gentle man called Fortuné Peille who was a hat maker. He lived in Couiza, the village just over the river. Fortuné saw that the local hat makers – of which there were many! - could no longer make ends meet. Making hats was expensive and time consuming, and other hat makers in other countries could make cheaper, poorer quality, hats faster. This made Fortuné sad and he decided to do something about it.”
“What did he do?”, chirped Maria.
“Well, Fortuné was an inventor and a clever man. He made machines to make good quality hats more quickly! His ideas, at first, didn’t go down well with the other local hat makers. They felt threatened by the machines and by this new-fangled technology. But as time went on, and as Fortuné’s factory became successful, they saw that it was the only way to keep making hats locally. Fortuné made machines to make moulds to form hats. These machines helped to carve wood for hat brims but Fortuné also baked lumps of clay shaped liked hats in big ovens. With these wood and clay moulds, many hats could be made!”
Maria’s eyes goggled wide open as she imagined these mighty machines. “Where the hats pretty?”, she asked. “Oh yes!”, I say, “They were wonderful hats! There were Homburgs and Fedoras and Pork Pies for the gentlemen; Cloches and Buckets and Fascinators for the ladies. And my! The colours! The materials! They were hats that make you feel like a princess if you wore one! Fortuné had made his, and other people’s, dreams come true.”
Maria looks lost in these thoughts, imagining herself as a princess in one of these beautiful creations. Her eyelids start to droop a little, so I whisper in the hope that she may get back to sleep. “Fortuné carried on making beautiful hats for many years. He became known all throughout France and even in other countries too! He made hats for Tyrolean farmers, hats for lawyers to wear in court, hats that made people feel good. He made more and more fantastic machines to make felt, and to make strong fibres from wool. He used steam and electricity to power his machines – and everyone who worked with him enjoyed what they did.”
“Did Fortuné live happily ever after, Mamá?”. Dear little Maria is nearly asleep again now. “Yes, he did”, I said, gently stroking her hair, “yes, he did.”. “Will we live happily ever after as well, Mamá?”. “Of course we will, mi reinata, of course”, I reply hoping that my voice doesn’t crack and tremble as a tear rolls down my face.
Maria-Dolores is asleep again now and I am wide awake, staring at the iron framework in the ceiling of our prison. The cold from the concrete floor seeps into my bones; the river is still roaring and the stifled cries of pain from room 9 cut through the night air like a knife. “Will we live happily ever after as well, Mamá?”. How can I forgive myself for lying to her – but how could I say anything else? Franco has occupied Catalonia and rules with an iron fist. Daladier and Chamberlin have ceded Sudetenland – as if it were theirs to cede in the first place – to Hitler as a naïve appeasement in the hope of avoiding another war. Rumour has it that Hitler will ignore them and invade the remains of Czechoslovakia soon, and then what? That Nazi bastard will probably invade the rest of mainland Europe as well. And if that happens, there will be no “happily ever after” for anyone. Just war. Chaos. Death.
“Ici, du 8 février 1939 au 8 mai 1940 dans l’ancienne « Chapellerie » furent détenus et internés des Refugiés Républicains Espagnols exilés fuyant la fascisme franquiste (plus de 600 femmes et enfants). En hommage à leur souffrance et leur dignité. Passant souviens-toi !!”
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
497 women and 317 children were imprisoned at the Montazels-Couiza concentration camp on the 8th February 1939.
The camp was closed on the 8th May 1940.
Spanish refugees in France were sent to build roads in the Aude region, to work in the gold mine at Salsignes, north of Carcassonne, or to Nazi extermination camps.
The old hat factory at Montazels, established in 1920, continued manufacturing hats until the 21st February 2018 – it was the last hat factory in the Aude region and marked the end of a manufacturing era spanning more than a century.
Story inspired by the source articles below. All photographs © crashed.out aside from pictures 2 and 8 which are taken from source 4.
The camp was closed on the 8th May 1940.
Spanish refugees in France were sent to build roads in the Aude region, to work in the gold mine at Salsignes, north of Carcassonne, or to Nazi extermination camps.
The old hat factory at Montazels, established in 1920, continued manufacturing hats until the 21st February 2018 – it was the last hat factory in the Aude region and marked the end of a manufacturing era spanning more than a century.
Story inspired by the source articles below. All photographs © crashed.out aside from pictures 2 and 8 which are taken from source 4.
Sources
1. https://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2009/04/18/593913-couiza-un-enfant-de-couiza-honore.html
2. http://musiqueetpatrimoinedecarcass...-de-450-000-refugies-espagnols-en-france.html
3. https://quilldriverbooks.com/products-page-2/craven-street/a-cross-of-thorns/
4. http://audealaculture.fr/sites/default/files/Archives/guerre_d_espagne_refugies_espagnols.pdf
5. https://www.lindependant.fr/2019/04...mps-audois-de-couiza-et-montolieu,8130502.php
6. http://ffreee-retirada.blogspot.com/2017/10/voici-des-photos-de-la-chapellerie-de.html
7. https://www.ladepeche.fr/article/20...ee-en-hommage-aux-republicains-espagnols.html
8. https://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2003/10/28/194455-retirada-l-aude-exhume-son-passe.html
9. http://agevermeil.ek.la/l-industrie...et-a-couiza-par-roger-jean-juin-2011-a4212315
10. http://agevermeil.ek.la/les-initiateurs-veritables-batisseurs-de-couiza-a5009727
11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_(Spain)
12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalonia_Offensive#Fall_of_Barcelona
13. https://www.ladepeche.fr/article/20...-la-derniere-usine-de-chapeaux-de-l-aude.html
