To mark the 90th anniversary of the Civil War, José Ángel Mañas recreates, in Zenda, day by day in this section, what happened in 1936, perhaps the most pivotal year in all of Spain’s recent history.
Tuesday, October 27, 1936: In the Ventas Prison
Come on, everyone to the courtyard. I said to the courtyard!
The prisoners obeyed. Those who lagged were pushed along by the militiamen. “Quiet, we’re not animals,” protested one. They were placed in the center of the yard, exposed to the open air. By late October it was already getting cold. It rained on and off. The sky clouded from time to time. Yet by midday the weather cleared, and the sky became bright, sunny, very much in the Castilian style. Some prisoners, little accustomed to the light after weeks of confinement, blinked their eyes. It was two o’clock in the afternoon.
Soon a militiaman stood out among the others with a red-and-black scarf around his neck. From the start of the war, many prison guards had been anarchists. The anarcho-syndicalists, former inmates, had an interest in a place they knew well. Today that pale man, poorly dressed in a worn jacket and espadrilles, but with a pistol at his belt, faced the prisoners. The harshness of his tone contrasted with the jokes of the previous day. The prisoners understood the shift. Some felt a chill run down their spines. News had reached them, through one of the guards, of what had happened in other prisons.
Among those gathered there were two right-wing intellectuals, two Ramíros, Maeztu and Ledesma. Both very different. Maeztu, of the 1898 generation and author of Defense of Hispanidad, a traditionalist, Catholic thinker. Ledesma, a postal official and ideologue of Spanish fascism, founder of the Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista (JONS), which would later merge with José Antonio’s Spanish Falange.
Neither Maeztu, with his deep religious convictions and remarkable strength of character, nor the young Ledesma, more somber but equally idealistic and visceral, moved a muscle. Neither they nor any of the others took a single step forward.
“Is there anyone here who wants to redeem himself of his sins? I suspected as much. You are all traitors to the legitimate Government and to your homeland. Enemies of the working class and of the Republic. You will soon regret it, you bastards. Take them all back to their cells!”
The guards hauled them away with rifle butts.
All entries from 1936 day by day
Interview with José Ángel Mañas about 1936 day by day