The defeated peninsular Spaniards who took refuge in Mallorca

Francesca Palou Fernández, a 63-year-old from Pollença, perfectly remembers the general elections of March 3, 1996, which gave victory to José María Aznar of the People's Party, after 14 years of socialist government under Felipe González. "It was with my family." grandmother My mother was watching TV. When Aznar came on, she said to me in Spanish, "They're coming back, Francisqueta, they're coming back," referring to the right wing. It was the first time I'd ever heard her make a political comment. At that time, there were still many people alive who had suffered under Franco and who were still afraid. On May 5th, Aznar was sworn in as president, and curiously, she died the next day of a heart attack, at 84 years old. Perhaps she couldn't bear the shock that made her relive all her ghosts from the past.

Palou's godmother was named María Capilla del Pino. She was born in 1915 in Calzada de Oropesa, a small town in Toledo bordering Extremadura. She came from a family of well-to-do farmers. She married young, pregnant, to Emilio Fernández Nieto, a young man also from the countryside, who would give her six children. In 1939, at the end of the Civil War, her husband joined the resistance of the guerrillas in the Sierra, the so-called maquis. "He hid," the cleanup crew asserts, "in a nearby mountain and, according to some witnesses, was involved in robberies, kidnappings, and murders. Some nights he would come to the house to see his children while they slept. The fascists suspected this and often visited my house." grandmother so that she would reveal her hiding place. However, they failed to extract the secret. In 1945, after being tortured, she was imprisoned. She spent fourteen months locked up in Getafe (Madrid), where her last daughter, Emilia, was born. She claimed the baby died in prison, but we believe she was stolen and given to some corrupt couple. It's a story that has certain parallels with the novel. The sleeping voice (2002), by Dulce Chacón, which director Benito Zambrano turned into a film in 2011."

'The Merry Widow' by Pollença

That loss was added to that of her first child, who had been run over by a cart at the age of five. To support her other four children (three girls and a boy) during the infamous years of hunger, Capilla turned to smuggling and black marketeering, for which she would be arrested on other occasions. "She was a very good embroiderer. However, she couldn't read or write; she always signed with her fingerprint. On the other hand, when it came to counting money, she never made a mistake." In 1946, news arrived of her husband's murder at the age of 32, after he had been captured in a police raid. "Then, thegrandmother She felt more alone than ever. In the village, she was looked down upon for being the widow of a 'Red'. To escape that suffocating atmosphere, an uncle from America encouraged her to go. She, however, didn't dare undertake such a long sea voyage with such young children. Finally, in 1953, at the age of 38, she decided to take them to Mallorca, where a friend of hers lived, married to a Civil Guard officer from Pollença who had been purged.

In Pollença, Capilla found work as a maid in the notary's office. She also employed her three underage daughters as maids, while, at the bursar's insistence, she sent her youngest son to the Misericordia orphanage in Palma for three years—he would be the only one in the family to attend school. "She," Palou notes, "was very tall and attractive. Despite the suffering she endured, she was always in good spirits. She was very friendly. That's why the people of Pollença nicknamed her 'the merry widow.' However, as a sign of mourning, she never wore bright colors. She dressed simply and humbly."

Just as Capilla put water between herself and the victims to escape social stigma, in Mallorca there were also relatives of victims of repression who sought peace elsewhere on the island. Many chose to settle in Palma, which offered greater anonymity. This was the case of Magdalena Roig Gelabert, widow of Antoni Amer. GarañaThe last Republican mayor of Manacor. At the beginning of the so-called Transition, the children of the woman from La Mancha pulled strings to ensure she received a widow's pension. It was in vain, as they couldn't prove she was married, since the church where the marriage registry was located had burned down during the war. "She never wanted to talk about her husband, her missing daughter, or her time in prison. She also never spoke about politics." Later in life, Palou became aware of this great family taboo while studying Art History. "Thegrandmother He always got angry with me when I asked him for details about his life on the Peninsula. It was obvious he was carrying a lot of trauma. The only thing I ever got him to tell me was that when he was in his village, he saw neighbors wearing the clothes the fascists had taken from them.

In Search of the Truth

"Hegrandmother —the cleaning continues— she never learned to speak Catalan. Since she was illiterate, she didn't feel capable of it, and if you spoke to her, she pretended not to hear.” Her children had a different attitude. “My mother, María de Pilar Fernández Capilla, Mari, who was the fourth daughter, came to Mallorca at the age of 12 and went to work as a servant for a family. They welcomed her warmly. She has always considered them her second family. With them, she quickly learned the language, the cooking, and Mallorcan customs. Today, no one would say she's a 'foreigner'.”

In 1960, at the age of 19, Palou's mother married a stonemason from Pollença. They soon emigrated to Lyon, France, where he had settled two years earlier to work. At that time, the Mallorcan countryside didn't provide enough income. I was born there in 1962, but after a year we returned to Pollença, where my other two siblings were born." In 1995, Capilla's youngest son, Leandro, now 50, felt compelled to travel to his hometown in Toledo to investigate the past of his father, a murdered member of the Maquis resistance, and his sister Emilia, who died in prison, since his mother never wanted to answer his questions. She even hid from him the fact that he shared the name of one of his father's brothers. His search, which proved fruitless, caused great distress to the family.grandmother".

"You don't understand anything"

Among the defeated were also people from the Peninsula who landed in Mallorca fleeing poverty. This was the case of Francisco Lorente Pérez. His grandson, Pep Lorente Jorquera, 71, from Sóller, also discovered his story later in life. "His life," he says, "was a mystery. He died in 1972 when I was 17. He was a man of republican ideals, very reserved but with a great sense of humor. At home, we never knew if he was one of those persecuted during the Civil War. The only information we have is that he didn't do military service because his eyesight was very poor, and that everyone on TV was applauding him. And he would answer me in Spanish: 'Shut up, shut up, you don't understand anything.' Later, I discovered who Franco had been."

Lorente arrived in Mallorca in 1936, the same year as the military uprising. The island suddenly fell into the hands of the rebels. "This didn't seem to be an impediment for him. He prioritized going somewhere with more job opportunities than his Murcia, where he had no future. Here he was able to have a quiet life. He found work in Sóller, in a textile factory. He settled there with his wife and parents, and a little girl. My daughter was diagnosed with cancer shortly after. After becoming a widower, he remarried a woman from Valldemossa, with whom he had no more children. That newcomer never spoke Catalan either. He only learned to say..." damn it and with a Murcian accent. My father, on the other hand, did speak to her. Curiously, in Sóller, he married another woman from Murcia, my mother, who had also settled in the town fleeing the poverty of the Peninsula with her parents and eight siblings." Francesca Palou Fernández, from the latter, PayayaToday she is a renowned glossator, an art she learned from her father, Antoni Palou Aloy, from Pollença. RoosterAs a closing, he wrote the following gloss: "In our hearts has run aground, / your merciless fear. / I must request an audience / before your authority, / for the guilt / that the imprudence makes me feel, / that after 30 years of your absence, / we have broken the silence. / I survive with the baggage / that of your curtain. / Like a tribute, / that slanted clipping, / an enamored witness / of what your journey was."