After the battle of the Ebro, everyone in the army knew that the war was completely lost. I knew it before then because I was already a refugee in Catalonia.

My parents were refugees in Catalonia. My parents had crossed into France in a small boat from the Basque Country. I left much later from Asturias. My brother left from Santander. And another brother was fighting with the African troops. In short, the whole family was completely dispersed, something quite logical and natural in a civil war.

Because the war started on July 18, 1936. That was the date of the military uprising in Africa. A tragic day for Spain, and it was a tragic day for all Spaniards, and possibly for Europe as well. But that’s what happened. And so it continued for three years.

The Basque Country was lost in the year… in the summer of 1937.  I don't remember when exactly. I was in the military academy, already a battalion captain, in the infantry. I lost my people there. I got my father out in a car. They put him on a boat, and they left for France.

Santander was in total chaos. People didn’t know what to do, they didn’t know where to go. The Basque delegation told Basques to go to Laredo and that there would be English boats there to take them to Barcelona, which wasn’t the case. They captured the entire Basque army in Laredo: the Germans, the Italians, and the Spanish. Many were shot. Others were sent to concentration camps; others sent to prisons. In short, practically the entire northern army was disbanded there.

While I was in Santander, waiting to leave, someone saw me board a tiny boat, which sank after a few meters. How many died, no one knows. Because truly it was chaos, total chaos. But I didn't leave in that little boat. Someone saw me board it, but I got off quickly because I didn't like it. And in a small boat called the Marielena, registered in Bilbao, a group of us Basques, and possibly people from Santander, left for Asturias. I don't remember how many people there were.

We were there in Asturias, I was a military attaché. I didn't have everything. The entire military command was in complete disarray. The newspapers lied tremendously – that things were going to be all right, that there were victories of the Republican army -- all lies, there were no victories. You only had to keep your eyes open to know what was going to happen next. It was a complete disaster.

There was no way out of Asturias. In one direction were the fascists, in another was the sea, with Franco's forces. We had no navy. And on the other side, on land, were the Italians and the Germans. The only hope was the sea. But how?

So, a group of Basques from within the medical branch of the army, among them was a socialist, a friend of mine, Alangua, from Bilbao, a very blond guy. We decided to hijack a ship and bring aboard the entire Basque medical team and leave for France.

I don't remember which little town, but I think it was called Villaviciosa where they make the famous alcoholic cider. It was a sailboat. We grabbed the captain who was there apparently, and we got on board and threatened to kill him if he didn't get the boat underway. The little port was called Tazones, now I remember. The captain said that he didn’t have the starter to power the engine. We could do nothing. The engine wasn’t running, we couldn’t leave the port. Because it had nothing but sails and a tiny engine.

But a guy who was above us said, "He is lying.” He had two and turned one in to the Admiralty Headquarters. Apparently, the naval administration in those days required ship captains to hand over the most important part of the machinery of the engines to maintain control over the ships, so that they could not desert to France. Upon hearing this, we went down to the cabin and Alangua put a gun to the captain's chest and said to him, “If you don't get this out of here this minute, we'll finish you off. And the captain said, "Wait a while, because I think, yes, there is another one."

The captain started the thing up. Alangua said to me, "Miguel, go to the Basque Medical General Command and get all the people you can, we'll wait for you here." I took off running. We didn't have a car, there wasn't a bicycle, there wasn't a motorbike. It was a number of kilometers away. The bridges were exploding to my right and left. I kept running. I told all the Basque doctors and nurses, “Come on, there is a boat that will take us to France.” They grabbed what little they had with them and they all ran.

I arrived in time, and they were about to leave. I left the people there and told Alangua, “Wait a little bit for me, because I have to go from here to the corner. I think I saw a boy or a girl who wants to come with us. I went there and I didn't see anyone. Possibly, they were afraid and ran away. I ran back and had to jump, and make a great effort because the little boat was already moving away from the dock.

With logic, and perhaps with a bit of intuition, we told the captain to go towards the coast of Galicia, and not towards the coast of the Basque Country. We thought, and we thought right, that the entire Spanish, or fascist, navy would be near the ports between France and the Basque Country, and that was the case. We headed towards Galicia, and nothing happened to us.

Arriving near the coast of Galicia, we made a sharp turn, and went directly to Bordeaux, and there we arrived two days later. The boat had no water, but there were many bottles of cider. And with cider we made coffee, and it was practically the cider that sustained us for a few days.

From France I went to Catalonia. I was sick. (Madeline; “You mean you crossed back to Catalonia from France?) From France I went to Catalonia. You don't have to cross anything, Madeline, you just have to take the train. In Barcelona I went to the military…. They sent me to a hospital, a hospital where my father had been thirty years before. So, that’s where they cured me. (Madeline: “What was wrong with you?”) I don't know how many things there were wrong with me. (Madeline: “You said you had lice.”) Scabies, lice, all kinds of things. I don't remember exactly, but there was something wrong. Infections, possibly, from not eating and from not bathing and...

I spent about a week in the hospital in Barcelona, where there were many of the international brigades, which made a huge impression on me. Because I had heard very little foreign language spoken in my life. And I asked the nurse if she knew where the Basque delegation was. She told me yes, it was on the Paseo de Gracia. And I headed there on foot. It’s a beautiful avenue, Paseo de Gracia.

And going down the avenue, a woman flung her hands around my neck, and I saw that it was my mother, and with her was my father. They were coming from the Basque delegation. And they had been told, a young man there had told them, that he had seen me get into a little boat in Asturias and that I had drowned; which now they saw wasn’t true. Anyway, we were there for a while sitting on a bench. It was a spectacle, but not an uncommon spectacle in the horrible Spain of that time. And they told me they had a farm, a country house, in Vilasar de Dalt. It is a little port on the Costa Breve... Brava, a beautiful little port. And there they were. And also there was my brother Nicolás who had escaped before me from Santander. He’d arrived in France in a dredger, and from France came to Barcelona.

Two months later my brother Ángel deserted from the Spanish Moroccan forces, and came over to the side of the Republic. In other words, we were all there together for one year. It was the last year. After that, no one else. Many years passed before we were together again.

From there I was assigned to the eastern army, I think it was called the eastern army, I don't remember. As a company captain, they gave me a unit of mules that I hated to death. And they sent me to the Pyrenees. One day they called me to say that they had taken two hundred and fifty Basque and Navarrese prisoners, and that they were adding them to my company. I looked at them and I realized that those men were going to be in my company for a week. They were all going to defect to the other side. They not only left, but they also took with them the mules with the supplies.

In short, the brigade chief accused me of being soft and complacent, and he practically wanted to shoot me. But apparently, I didn’t offer any resistance. He realized that he was talking to an idiot, or a simpleton, or to someone who no longer cared about, about, about the right, or the left, or the center, or the top, or the bottom. Anyway, he let me go. (Madeline – Was this the Communist brigade?) Yeah. (Madeline – That's right, because you told me they put you in a Communist brigade”. Yeah, that's right.)

There, I met a Basque from San Sebastián who was a teacher. And he was the brigade's political commissar. A nice, pleasant, intelligent man. But that being said, he had about him that communist worldview, that narrow view of life. I actually confessed to him that I had nothing to do with the communists. That I had liked the trade unions of the CNT. The guy was horrified. And he told me that I was in the wrong place. He told me, “These people have a fierce hatred of trade unionists. Don't tell that to anyone." What do you mean? I wrote it in the registry when I arrived. And he says, "You’re kidding,”. And I say, "Yeah," and he says, "Amazing!"

Well, so the battle of the Ebro was taking place, and everyone knew that it was another disaster. It doesn't matter that the Republicans crossed the Ebro. They took many Italians prisoner. Anyway, and there was a great fanfare in the press. It was a neat operation, but of course there weren't enough people or weapons to continue. And there it all ended. It was like a… an air bubble.

So, they began to call people, because people were dying like, like flies there. And from my people they took a number of captains and I thought, now they are going to take me too. But they never called me, which is very strange. (Madeline – Maybe since they didn’t trust you, maybe they didn’t trust you, because they knew you weren’t a Communist.) It was a moment that… There was no need to trust anyone, Magdalena. The movement, the cause was so desperate that it was not worth it anymore. They sent you like that, by pointing with their finger, go Miguel. But, no, no, nobody said anything to me, and I was delighted. The truth was I wasn’t interested. I was quite disenchanted with the whole giant problem of the war. I didn’t see a way out or any solution.

There was a young man with me in the brigade who confessed to me that he was also from the CNT, or from the trade unions. His name was Escartín. (Madeline and Constance speaking over each other.) Trade unionist. His name was Escartín. He had been a watchmaker, and he couldn’t read or write. And he looked like a movie actor. He was a tall guy, very elegant, an extraordinary face, and he didn’t know how to read and write. And when he spoke, you wanted to run. You saw him, what a Greek statue, but it was a strange thing, he was completely useless. But he became a very good friend of mine. He was my lieutenant, and he was always with me.

When the battle of the Ebro was definitively lost, I told Escartín, “I’m sorry, but I can’t stay here anymore. I can’t take this anymore. This is going to hell and by the time the gates open to go to the other side, and almost a million people want to go to the other side, it’s going to be a huge catastrophe. I don’t want to see it, nor do I want to be a part of it.” And Escartín told me, “Me neither, and I’ll go with you. I have family in Bordeaux, and I’m sure they’ll welcome us.”

One moonlit night, we were standing guard near the border with Andorra, above La Seu d’Urgell I think it was, I don’t remember exactly. I know that the water was very good, and I drank lots of it. One night we walked to the command post, which was in the hands of the Civil Guard. We got there, we greeted them. While we were talking, Escartín and I took out our guns and said, “We’re going to the other side. Don’t worry, don’t shoot, because we’re leaving, that’s all. Nothing’s going to happen here.” I was twenty-three years old, Escartín was thirty. The Civil Guards just stood there. Escartín made the mistake of wanting to take the rifle from a Civil Guard. The Civil Guard said, “No, not that. The rifle is part of my body, and you will never take that off me.” I told Escartín, “Leave him be.” But Escartín insisted and so, there was sort of a small scuffle between the two. I turned away and went straight to the bridge. I shouted to Escartín and said, “Leave it, don’t be an idiot.” Finally, he left him, we started running. Fortunately, there was a small, a small curve near the bridge, and that was in our favor in case they started shooting, but they didn’t shoot. They didn’t do anything, total silence. And we started walking. Then, we saw a car coming, a car that didn’t stop, I don’t know why not. It was a car belonging to Spanish military men who had possibly come from buying tobacco or liquor in Andorra. And it didn’t stop. If it stopped, they might have killed us there. But, it didn’t stop.

We continued walking until we reached the Plaza of Andorra. In the plaza, a committee that was there, from whom I don’t know, put us up in a hotel. The Red Cross, I don’t know, put us in a hotel. The next morning, we left for the next, for the next French city. We crossed the Pyrenees, we walked for a good while. Later, we crossed over in a bus. I don’t remember clearly, I don’t remember the French city well, but the food that was in the store windows really surprised me. The people so well dressed surprised me a lot. (Madeline – You didn’t tell your parents you were leaving? Your parents didn’t know?) Oh, I told my father when I was going to leave that town. I said to him, “Father, we’ll be seeing each other,” and my father told me, “No, son, we’ll never see each other again.” My father was right, I wasn’t.

In that French city, whose name I don’t recall, a city near the border with a lot of light, a lot of life. The next day, we slept there that night. I don’t remember what happened, it was a very strange thing. I was so, I was so tired, so, so depressed that I don’t remember anything. I wanted to keep walking, but Escartín said no, “We’re going to sleep here,” he said. I didn’t know that the French already had concentration camps prepared. They knew that the war would be lost in a month or two. They told us so there. In short, the next day we left for Bordeaux to meet Escartín’s family. It was a proletarian family that treated us very well. They fed us.

And we were there for a while. At the station I found out about a Basque shelter. There I left Escartín. I told him, “Escartín, I can’t stay here. I am going to America. One way or another, I’m leaving for America. I have to go look for a pier, or a place where there are Basques. But I can’t stay here. This is going to be a, a, a horrible, feeding frenzy.” He said, “I wish I could go with you, Miguel, but the truth is, I don’t know how to swim, and I’ve never seen the sea, and it scares me to death.” I said to him, “Okay, then stay. Who knows, maybe you’ll be luckier than I.” That’s how we parted. We never saw each other again. I imagine he’s probably dead by now.

From there I went to the Basque shelter. No, first I went to the Basque delegation in Bordeaux. The Basque delegation sent me to this Basque shelter. In this Basque shelter, I met a friend of mine from Bilbao who was a pharmacist. They were all Basque there. The woman, who was a cook, gave me a fantastic meal that night and I slept very, very well. But, before I got there, I left walking from the bus. I had to cross...

… clinging to a tree. I remembered everything, all my friends, my father, my mother, the country, what would become of me, what was going to happen, where was I going. There was no one to answer me. I had horrible scabies on my body. My whole body itched horribly. At last I reached this château, where the Basques were. They fed me dinner. I helped them do something, I don’t remember what. I met other different friends in Bordeaux. I began to connect with them. And in that little town where the château was, I found a doctor from Guernica, a Basque doctor from Guernica. He had studied in Paris and I explained to him what was wrong with me, and he sent me to a hospital in Bordeaux. I was there a week. Finally, I was rid of scabies, forever.

I went back to the shelter. But I didn’t want to be in Bordeaux, I wanted to go back to the French Basque Country. So, I spoke with a Jesuit who apparently knew my family in Bilbao. I don’t know why. Or he knew my cousin Nicolás who had a shop that sold religious statuary in the Plaza Nueva. He told me, “Look, go to a shelter near Bayonne, Capbreton,” a place that was fantastic, a beautiful place, near Biarritz. And there I went. There I learned that there was a group of Basques who were going to leave for America, for Venezuela to set up some fisheries. In command was a very nice fisherman captain named Burgaña. Later he was an important boss in the great Colombian republic of Venezuela.

I spoke with him, and he told me, “No, I can't take you, Miguel. I appreciate you volunteering, but I have here a list of people who have to come. But, if you get onto the boat, and we’re out at sea, well, there’s nothing we can do. We take you." That was my arrival in America. I mean, I got onto that boat. (Madeline – “How big was the boat?”) Oh, I don't remember, thirty feet, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, thirty, thirty-five. I remember a small fishing boat, one of those from Ondarroa, from Bermeo. (Madeline – “How many men on it? How many?”) I think there were six men in total. With me it would be seven.

I got in among the... Burgaña told me the night they would be leaving. And I got in, I placed myself among the nets. And when they were about to leave, a priest came to bless the boat. A Basque priest, a refugee also. Besides that, one of those who came with the priest, or with the Basque delegation, I don't know with whom, sat down on top of me, and said, "You’ll be comfortable here." And I was underneath him. Anyway, I heard the engine start and I realized that we were leaving the sandbar because the little boat began to pitch. We were no longer in the estuary, we were already out at sea.

In a few hours we were close to the coast in front of Bilbao. In an hour, in front of Bilbao. The sea was as it always is in the Bay of Biscay, rough and horrible. But by then, I had already emerged, I had spoken with Burgaña. Everyone was surprised. "Who is this? Where did he come from?" Some already knew me because I had played soccer with the Basque team against the French in Bayonne. So, some already knew me. Some shook my hand, others were indifferent. In short, there I was. The sea was so bad that I thought we were going to die in front of my house. Awful. So, I began to vomit terribly. I threw up for about two days. After two days, I was fine, nothing happened. Everything was okay until we got to Africa, to Dakar.

Everything was dark. The entrance to the port wasn’t on the map. That is to say, the French had enlarged the port, and it wasn’t indicated on the map that Burgaña had. Possibly it was an older map. And we nearly crashed into the pier. There were no lights, there was nothing. Fortunately, I saw it. I was on the bow of the boat, and I saw and shouted at the helmsman to steer clear, and he swerved. And we grazed the rocks. We entered the port. There was not a soul, it was deserted.

The next morning, a port captain came to see us, “Who are you, where did you come from, where are you going? We explained, and he told us that he had orders from the Germans, who apparently were forty kilometers from the city, that no one should leave. If ships entered, no one should leave. I never understood that. Why? if the Germans were there…. I never understood. I never found out why that was so. But…

We filled up with gasoline, and the following morning we left. We got water. We bought some food, lemons, bananas, fruit, coconuts and we went on our way. By that time they had already declared war in Europe. It was September. War had been declared in Europe. The Germans had already invaded… I think, I think Warsaw. Or they were already starting the bombing of Europe, of the big cities. We came across a German submarine. It looked at us. We looked at each other. It said nothing. It continued on, we continued on. And so we got to Venezuela. (Madeline: “How many days?”) I think apparently about thirty days. Something like that. I don't remember exactly.

In Venezuela, I was very surprised that those people spoke Spanish, but they did. I was in La Guaira. And so began the whole saga of America. I was there for a year. I didn’t like it at all. There Burgaña came to see me one day to say that he had seen a list that the Venezuelan government had of leftist people who had to leave the country, and my name was there. So I went to… (Madeline: Where did, what were you doing there? How did you make a living there?) I play soccer mostly. (Constance: Profesional?) Yeah, I play football. (Constance: With the Venezuelan team?) With a Spanish team.

So, I went out and down to the port and met a French Breton. And a Basque, and the Breton, and I put our money together. He was there too. He had escaped from Gibraltar in the little boat. And we put our money together to buy spaghetti, some things. And we went to sea. Heading for the United States. (Madeline: “To go to Miami? Is that where you wanted to go in Florida?”) Yeah, United States, the closest thing was Miami. But a hurricane caught us in the Caribbean, near Puerto Rico. In the Canal de la Mona. And the winds blew us to the Dominican Republic.

The boat ran aground. We fell asleep, shut everything down. It ran aground at a point called Punta Espada where there were three hundred donkeys. There was an awful noise from the donkeys there. There were only donkeys on that damn point. Finally, a small boat from the Dominican government came. We were taken to the police. I said that I wanted to stay. I found out that there were four thousand Spanish refugees there. And to be honest, it was a pretty good time in the Dominican Republic. The people were great, the dictator was horrible, Trujillo. The people were wonderful and we didn't have a bad time. Here I met Bernardo Clariana, the Spanish poet, with Vela Zanetti, the painter. I met many others, like Jesús Galíndez, the one who was assassinated by Trujillo – a Basque, and his father operated on my left eye during the war. (Constance; “Galíndez?” Madeline; “He was a doctor in Spain when Papi was wounded.” Constance; ”Ah so he was the one who did it.”) In Amurrio he operated on me without needles, without anything, without anesthesia. And he told me, "If you faint, you’ll lose your eye." I said, "Doctor, I don't think I'll faint." And I didn't faint. He was a fantastic ophthalmologist. (Constance; Galíndez's father?”) That's how we became friends. Speaking with Galíndez, he told me, “I've read your name, Miguel. I read your name in a report that my father made to a... in Germany to a... at a... at a medical conference or something, something like that, ophthalmologists, I don't completely remember, it was many years ago, and many things have happened. In short, I was there in the Dominican Republic for three and a half years with other refugees.