The masters of Palma who promised the sea

With the military uprising of July 1936, teachers in Mallorca were also repressed, such as Antoni Benaiges, 33, from Tarragona, the protagonist of the successful film The teacher who promised the sea (2023). Benaiges, who would pioneer an innovative methodology at the time, was shot in a small town in Burgos, where he had been stationed since 1934. His students were left without the promise he had made them: to take them to see the sea.

In our house, there was no shortage of teaching professionals inspired by utopias similar to that of the Catalan. The most punished were those from the well-known academic block in Palma. Historian Gabriel Alomar Serra, a retired teacher from the IES Ramon Llull, gives details of the term: "It refers to an educational complex that was built in 1916 with five buildings in eclectic styles around the current Plaza del Tub. The five functioned as centers for the Ramon Llull School of Art (Escuela de Arte), the School of Commerce, which currently houses UIB offices under the name of the Riera building, the IES Joan Alcover (formerly the Teacher Training School), and the IES Ramon Llull." Initially, this center was called the General Technical Institute and was the only one in Mallorca. Its director represented the highest educational authority on the island. The rector of the University of Barcelona also served as his superior.

The embryo of that academic island was the Balear Institute, created 81 years earlier, in 1835, at the Estudi General Lul·lià, in the heart of Palma. It was later moved to the former Jesuit convent of Monti-sion. "That," Alomar asserts, "was the first secondary school in the entire country. Personalities such as Antoni Maura, the future president of the Spanish government, passed through its classrooms. It was promoted by the Economic Society of Friends of the Country, following the plan defined by the Asturian politician Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, whose liberal spirit was similar to Mallorca, and who had defended public education in writing."

Intellectual Cenacle

In 1900, the Ministry of Public Education was created, and the provincial institutes were renamed "General and Technical." Given the deterioration of the Monti-sion building of the Institut Balear, a public competition was held to design a new educational complex. The site chosen was the former Tirador orchard, next to the Riera torrent and at the beginning of the Rambla, right at the edge of the Renaissance wall, which collapsed in 1902. Construction began in 1908 under the direction of Madrid native Tomás Gómez Acebo, who died in a tragic accident. The Mallorcan architects Jaume Alenyar and Josep Alomar took over. The day of the long-awaited inauguration was January 25, 1916.

"The cloisters of the 'academic islet' –the historian points out– were made up of a large part of the island's intellectuals of the time. Among others, there were presidents, collaborators and collaborators of the entity, the Lull·liana Archaeological Society and the magazine Our EarthSome were also involved in politics. In July 1936, therefore, all of them were suspects for the coup plotters.

Three months after the military uprising, a commission to purge secondary and vocational education began operating (there would also be another for the teaching profession). Although it was chaired by the civil governor (Antonio Álvarez-Ossorio), the one pulling the strings was the priest Bartomeu Bosch Sansó, professor of Latin and director of the General and Technical Institute. In September 1936, upon taking office, Bosch ordered that the school be renamed IES Ramon Llull to dispel the liberal values ​​of the French high schools that inspired him. The name change reaffirmed the religious dimension of the "illuminated doctor" who was supposed to "illuminate" the students. Since 1967, the school's courtyard has been presided over by a statue of the blessed man, which previously, since 1960, had stood outside, at the intersection with La Rambla, from the old Monti-sion building.

The School of Arts and Crafts in the academic block hosted the military tribunal in charge of most of the courts-martial. The accusations leveled against the teachers were diverse. "They could," Alomar points out, "be accused of being Catalanist simply for having signed the manifesto of the Response to the Message of the Catalans of June 1936. It was also frowned upon to have defended the postulates of the Free Institution of Education (ILE). And finally, membership in the Federation of Masonry Workers union or any party within the Popular Front was penalized."

The most common resolutions of the purging commission were forced retirement, lifelong disqualification from teaching, or transfer of post, along with suspension of employment and salary pending resolution. Chief Education Inspector Joan Capó was in charge of compiling the blacklists based on reports signed by the priest, the Civil Guard, the mayor, and a parent in each locality. Today, many of these reports are housed in Inca, in the Balearic Islands Education Archive and Museum (AMEIB). According to data collected on the Balearic Government's Democratic Memory portal, 312 teachers in the archipelago were purged and another 15 executed (seven teachers and eight professors). There were also those who, upon being disqualified, fell into depression and eventually committed suicide.

Murders

In Palma's academic district, the purge was significant. "Eight of the 11 professors at the Institut Balear in 1936 were convicted," Alomar states, "ten full professors, nine science, literature, or drawing assistants, two workshop teachers, five primary education inspectors, and even two administrative assistants and a janitor were sentenced." Four other teachers were murdered. The biggest game was the director of the School of Arts and Crafts, the sculptor Dionisio Pastor Valsero, a native of Zaragoza. Accused of being a Freemason, he was shot without trial on January 9, 1937. That same day, he had just been "liberated" from the Baños de San Juan de la Fontsanta (Campos) concentration camp. He was 68 years old.

Another man who also did not go to trial was Fernando Leal Crespo, 40, from Madrid. He was an inspector of primary education in the Balearic Islands and a member of the Balearic Republican Left (Esquerra Republicana Balear). He was tortured before being executed on the road to Sóller on the night of August 26, 1936. The same fate befell Josep Lluís Stengel Boscà, 24, a mathematics teacher at the School of Commerce, who had been arrested for belonging to the Communist Party, upon his release. In November, it was the turn of José María Olmos Escobar, a professor at the Teacher Training College. After being tried for his Masonic affiliation, he was shot in the Palma cemetery. He was 41 years old.

Collateral Victims

There were three other teachers from the academic block who, although not shot, died immediately after their release or purges. The first was Docmael López Palop, a professor of mathematics at the General and Technical Institute. A native of Enguera (Valencia), he served as deputy mayor under Emili Darder. He was also vice president of the Provincial Council. Having been imprisoned in Can Mir, in 1938 a court martial sentenced him to 30 years of imprisonment on charges of "rebellion by induction." The deplorable prison conditions aggravated López's lung problems, and a year later he was transferred to the Provincial Hospital of Palma, where he finally died on February 28, 1939. He was 57 years old.

The war was also a significant blow to Sebastià Font Salvà, professor of Philosophy at the General and Technical Institute and director of the center since 1918. In September 1936, he was dismissed and forced to retire. He died a few months later, in 1937, at the age of 66. Another victim of the trauma of the Civil War was José Ayaralar Almazán, a mathematics teacher at the Normal School, originally from Guadalajara. Accused of sympathizing with the Socialist Party and the FTE union, he was sentenced to prison until 1944. He then obtained permission to employ the Inca graduate as a schoolteacher. However, he died a few months later, at the age of 44.

Since March 2022, all Palma teachers who suffered repression during the Franco regime are commemorated with a plaque in the Plaça del Tub, the epicenter of the famous academic block. In addition to those mentioned, there are seventy more names, including women like María José López Cots and Magdalena Lladó Oliver. The memorial was initiated by Llorenç Carrió Crespí, then a councilor for Education and Language Policy for MÁS. "Today," Alomar concludes, "hardly any teacher knows the ordeal their predecessors endured during the Franco regime."