To commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Civil War, José Ángel Mañas recreates on Zenda, day by day in this section, what happened in 1936, perhaps the most pivotal year in all of Spain’s recent history.
Friday, August 28, 1936: The First Air Alarm (Letter from Pepe Mañas)
Dearest Merche:
A month has passed since this war began, and so many things have happened that it feels as if a year has gone by. How capricious time is! How dense when it wishes, and how fleeting at times.
As you know, I have stopped going to work at the School of Architecture and have interrupted my preparations for the competitive exams. Now I spend my days at the shop here in Carabanchel. I hardly ever wear a suit, to avoid looking like a spoiled rich kid, and I help, sleeves rolled up, to serve customers in the mornings, when we are allowed to open. Afterward I go out with Mother and my cousins to buy whatever is possible. In the meantime, Father stays at home tending the garden or listening to the radio.
We have carried on all August like this, enduring the heat and watching the frontlines’ developments. Until today, the problem was the militia’s excesses, because you don’t see much of the war in Carabanchel. The front remains in the hills. The militiamen come and go in a day. But yesterday, Monday, something new happened. At three in the morning, Mola’s planes appeared and, after bombing the Cuatro Vientos base, they flew over various parts of the city, dropping leaflets.
Since it was the first time, the militiamen went out and fired aimlessly at the sky. We stayed inside the house, with the shutters closed, in darkness. When the planes moved away, we too went out to pick up the leaflets. They said that the rebel army was approaching Madrid, that the city must surrender or we would all pay the consequences, that the greater the resistance, the harsher the punishment. That angered the militiamen. Many raised their fists, and Father, who had gone out with me because it was nighttime, quietly read the leaflet he picked up. Rosa and Inés stayed a while with Mother, talking with other neighbors, all of them quite upset.
You already know that Father is cross and goes out less than anyone. We are so unused to being cooped up together that we argue constantly over every little thing.
Tonight there is fear of another bombing. They tell us to turn off all the lights. After dinner, Mother has locked herself in with Rosa and Inés to pray, while Father smoked in the kitchen. I have gone to my room to write to you. I won’t hide that I’m afraid. I worry that I might be mobilized and sent to the front, although it seems that, for the moment, due to my age, I wouldn’t be called soon, and the Government has enough to do reorganizing the Army and bringing order to the militias.
I fear the reprisals of the fascist army if it enters Madrid. And the uncontrolled ones who are detaining any suspected fascist sympathizers. I have always been a supporter of the Republic. But with the leftist parties and the armed unions, the Government is overwhelmed. It is eleven o’clock at night. I hope to recover some hours of sleep. I am going to bed thinking of you. Your memory is my lifeline.
With love, as always, your Pepe
PD. Yesterday, as I was writing to you, it was enough for the letter to be finished for bombers to fly over us again just before midnight. A green flare lit up the rooftops and there were explosions beyond the Toledo Bridge. It seems a corporal died at the War Ministry. Soon after, a motorcycle with a siren passed by General Ricardos, and the neighbors complain that many people do not respect the light-out order. In the nervousness, we spent another sleepless night. I hope you are all better.
(From my family archive)
All the entries of 1936 day by day
Interview with José Ángel Mañas about 1936 day by day