by Dr. Israel Jamitovsky
For more than two decades, I had the honor and privilege of participating in Jewish-Christian and Spanish-Israeli symposiums held every two years in Spain and Israel respectively, in which academics and intellectuals from both countries took part. I remember that on more than one occasion, Spanish and Israeli historians disagreed on Franco's position towards Jews who aspired to enter Spain during World War II.
While the Spanish maintained that the Spanish regime had fulfilled its duty, the Israeli side maintained that Francoist Spain could and should have done much more for the Jewish community that aspired to settle in its space or in transit to other destinations. In another space and context, I remember that Professor Raanan Rein once stated that approximately 40 thousand Jews crossed Spain during the Second World War.
I invoke all this in recognition of this emotional and brief story that I am going to outline and which attests to the complexity and the dilemmas faced by those who held public and administrative positions in that unfortunate era.
The protagonist is Miguel Giner, who was born in Altea, Spain in 1900. When he turned 25, he passed the competitive examinations for the Customs Expert Corps. In 1928 he married Dolores, and from this union Vicente (1930) and Isabel (1931) were born. When the Civil War broke out, he was transferred to Barcelona and the couple moved to Catalonia, leaving their children in the care of the family in Altea. At the end of the Civil War, given that Barcelona was a red zone, Miguel Giner was ordered to be exiled by the Franco regime. In response, he moved with his family to the Aran Valley, to the Les border post, which belonged to the autonomous community of Barcelona and bordered on the French border (communes of Artigue and Sode). At the beginning of 1940, Miguel Giner was appointed administrator of the border post; the entire family lived in the same Customs house where the office and the farm were located. He met the Wehrmacht officer who guarded the border on the other side and was responsible for the Bagnéres-de-Luchos barracks and as customs officers on both sides of the border, the relationship between them was correct.
Coming face to face with the harsh reality
Everything was going normally until June 1943, when the following happened. At around 9 a.m. Miguel Giner heard voices on the road, something that was certainly not very common. Followed by his wife and son, he left his office and noticed that they were several people - including children - who spoke a foreign language and were moving quickly.
One of them, speaking very poor Spanish, asked to be allowed into Spain even though they did not have a visa. They begged him in tears, but Giner explained that he had to comply with the instructions he had received not to allow anyone into Spain who did not have a visa. Meanwhile, his son played with the Jewish children, while his wife fed all the immigrants and a neighbour even brought them glasses of milk. They were a group of Polish Jews who came from France.
Years later, Giner's son pointed out that without trying to justify his father's position, given that at the end of the Civil War, he was considered a red by Franco's regime and if he had allowed the entry of that group, he ran the risk of being shot or, in the best case, of being arrested.
When the truck arrived to pick up the fugitives, the Germans assured Giner that they were not going to exterminate them but rather transfer them to a labor camp. According to his son Vicente Giner, the scene was dramatic, with the entire Jewish community crying as they left.
It should be noted that Spain had already declared itself neutral at that time, but at the same time there were great difficulties in obtaining visas for Jews, since they were considered enemies of the regime along with Freemasons and Communists. Therefore, Manuel Giner did not dare to act otherwise, apart from the promise he had received from the Germans that nothing would happen to this Jewish group. A week later, the Wehrmacht officer told him quite naturally that the people Giner had returned had been shot in Toulouse.
A radical change in their approach
His son Vicente remembers that moment, his father turned pale, he told his wife - a woman with guts - who urged him to change his position. From then on he decided that no one else would be sent back and he made his decision known to his officials as well as what the Wehrmacht officer had revealed to him. Despite the orders given by Franco's Government, they were not going to stop anyone who reached the border and his officials were complicit in his decision.
Recognition and warm praise are also due to the people of Les. When their neighbours became aware of Miguel Giner's decision, they began to welcome and provide shelter to other groups of Jews who were fleeing. They hid them in their own farms, provided them with food and took them through the Bonaigua pass, knowing that there were people who would later help them to reach Barcelona, Vigo and Portugal.
His son Vicente Giner estimates that over the next two and a half months, at enormous risk, his father allowed between 300 and 500 Jews to cross the border without visas, but fortunately they were not intercepted. They were fleeing from the Germans, taking shelter in the mountains at night and descending to Les at dawn.
Miguel Giner was the ringleader of this memorable action, but the role played by the people of Les was invaluable and fundamental. Among the many people who owe their lives to him, we must mention Inge Berlín, who was barely 19 years old, as well as the young mother Esther Guita and her daughter Francoise Bielinsky.
The reasons for its secrecy
The State of Israel recognized the courage and bravery displayed by Miguel Ginar and issued a stamp in his name. His work was also recognized by the Wallenberg Foundation.
His son Vicente pointed out that from that fateful day in June 1943 until his death in 1970 in Alicante (his later residence) and that of his wife Dolores who died in 1980, neither he nor his sister nor his parents commented on the episode, but neither did they invoke his memorable display or the people they saved.
How can such behaviour be explained? Firstly, because they feared the possible reactions of the Franco regime and perhaps because Miguel Giner, despite his brave actions, even without knowing it and without wanting it, felt guilty when he sent nearly twenty people to their deaths, among them children, the same children who a few days earlier were playing with his own children.
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