During the Spanish Civil War, in the embassies that remained in Madrid without being the capital (since the capital was moved to Valencia in September 1936 and later to Barcelona, in November 1937), 11,000 people took refuge due to their ideas or position. , were against the Popular Front and saw their lives in danger. This meant that buildings with limited capacity ended up overflowing. People who had no relationship with the country represented but who knew that inside the embassy they could not be killed or detained.
There were curious cases such as that of Finland with its legation in Madrid, on Zurbano Street. The owner gave the keys to the building's maintenance manager and considered his diplomatic representation closed, but this manager, Francisco Cachero, reopened the building and placed the flag again, without Finland's knowledge. The building was filled with refugees so they set up more buildings, eventually having 1,700 refugees and it was attacked, arresting more than 1,000 people. Also in the Turkish embassy, located on Monte Esquinza street, parallel to Castellana, it was attacked by members of the SIM (Military Information Service), in January 1938, detaining 127 refugees, including the minister who acted as ambassador.
Panama is another example of refugees in its embassy on Goya Street in Madrid, number 83, third floor, first floor. 700 refugees arrived there, they expanded the embassy to the entire building, with the added difficulty that among them, 21 were sick with tuberculosis. Panama opened an embassy in Valencia and transferred part of its refugees on seven trips to Alicante and then by sea abroad. In total, 386 people. From Valencia the embassy moved to Barcelona in December 1937, a house near the Corte Inglés on Diagonal. Later he renovated a farm in Vilassar de Dalt where 340 refugees ended up arriving. The cost of this entire project, caring for and transferring the refugees from this embassy, was paid, in the first instance, by the United Kingdom and France, and in the second instance, by the Spanish colony residing in Panama.
A similar case occurred at the French embassy in Madrid, which expanded the embassy to other buildings to house its refugees. The main one, the French Lyceum, where 550 people took refuge. In this building, which continues to exist as the French consulate, in Marqués de la Ensenada, next to the Supreme Court, the refugees, who were people disaffected to the revolutionary republican regime, religious, military, university professors, artists, doctors, liberal professionals and a diverse, etc., they lived from August 1936 to January 1938. Their only common factor was not being part of the Popular Front, but between them they did not form a homogeneous group. Some had been in the Finnish legation and in other European embassies.
There are many illustrious names among these refugees. A good sample of the Spanish extreme right, right and centre-right. Aristocrats like Eduardo de Rojas, Count of Montarco, co-founder of the Spanish Falange and friend of Primo de Rivera. Engineers like Santiago Arechaga, Jaime Carrera, Luis Aza, Fernando Hontoria. Architects like Julián Laguna or Demetrio Pereda. Lawyers like Manuel de Bofarull, sailors like the Laguardia brothers, soldiers like García Morato, doctors like Dr. José Blanco. Also 20 religious, of which 16 priests, and elite athletes.
All refugees had to be assisted with meals and other needs, mostly served by sea on warships and through diplomatic channels, which made the work cumbersome and complicated. As the republican government wanted to facilitate its dismantling, in the event of abandoning these diplomatic missions it was not difficult to obtain safe conduct for the transfer of these people. It is at this point that Can Valls de Sant Vicenç de Montalt enters again, since the Generalitat shelter is dismantled and returns to the hands of the French embassy. Mayor Brunet hands the keys of Can Valls to the French consul on January 18, 1938.
With this circumstance, the French embassy took steps and obtained transfer permits for the group of 550 people. They were very complicated circumstances both to avoid the war fronts and to organize transportation from Madrid to Maresme. The entire route through Aragón was closed and the same thing happened around Madrid. So we had to travel by road to Tembleque, province of Toledo and from there by train to Valencia and later to Maresme, specifically to the Caldes d'Estrac or Caldetes station. The journey to Tembleque had police checkpoints, which were passed, arriving at dawn on January 20, 1938. After 3 hours of waiting, they boarded a train with eight third-class cars and three freight cars. Arriving at its destination at 11:30 on January 21. The trip was guarded by republican security forces and some French police. Each passenger had been provided with food for two days. M. Vincent from the French embassy would be the leader of the group and would accompany them to their destination.
The 800 meters of distance and about 30 meters of elevation difference between the station and Can Valls were covered on foot by the 550 refugees. During the previous days, when the transfer was decided, the three young people who still remained from the Gabrielistas and who due to their age were installed first in a commune and then as servants of the shelter, named Vivar, García and Zarategui, were in charge of mark the boundaries of the property with stakes and blue paint, marking “French embassy, no trespassing.”
When the group of refugees arrived, they could see that the dimensions of Can Valls were insufficient. The Gabrielists had been just over 100 in their convent house and the facilities really did not allow them to multiply their capacity by five. But the level and good disposition of the refugees made them adapt and they will look for solutions, guided by the refugee architect Julián Laguna, who would later have an important position in Madrid's urban planning. He accommodated all the staff in chicken coops and cabins. Still, conditions were poor, so the embassy decided to take 80 refugees to the French schools on Girona Street in Barcelona. It was the oldest group and in delicate health. It did not work and the embassy decided to settle again in the area, in the Titus spa, a hotel located next to Caldes d'Estrac, but belonging to the municipality of Arenys de Mar.
Life went by peacefully during the almost 2 months of stay in Can Valls. There was only one incident of shooting from outside which was immediately repelled. Daily masses were celebrated and the refugees used the freedom of the three young Gabrielists to obtain tobacco or information from abroad. The administration was supplied by France, which negotiated bread with a baker in Caldes d'Estrac and other products with local farmers, which were negotiated with money or by barter. France also supplied food to other embassies present there.
On March 16, 1938, at 3:30 p.m., M. Vincent summoned everyone to the main courtyard. He announced that they would leave for France in two ships that same afternoon, so they had to pick up only what was essential.
Many of them put several pieces of clothing on themselves so they could take them with them. At 10 at night, both the residents of Can Valls and those of the Titus spa formed a queue of half a kilometer between the Marquis of Casa Riera promenade and the English promenade, in front of the beach, prepared to board two boats with capacity between 20 and 30 passengers who went to and from the French navy ships La Palme and Épervoir, anchored more than a mile from the coast.
During the hours that boarding lasted, five stowaways entered the queue. Three of them were the minors Vivar, García and Zarategui, who had spoken that same afternoon with M.Vincent and had asked him. They were camouflaged with older clothing and were protected by the group during boarding. Also a woman, the wife of one of the refugees from the Titus Hotel, wanted to accompany her husband and managed to join the queue. Finally, a young employee of the French embassy in Barcelona, having learned of the plan, got on a truck and got off in Caldetes, achieving his goal. Two young Gabrielists, Julián Arribas and Marcelo Trascasa, who two years earlier were not sent to the St. Elias Czech Republic because they were minors and who had now passed the age of 18, were included by the French ambassador and by M. Fuzeau, director of the Gabrielistas, on the list of asylum seekers. They were in Can Valls as such, protected by a letter that asked them to be welcomed into a French school of the same religious order.
The boats, torpedo boat and counter-torpedo boat, were not designed to carry so many people, so the refugees had to settle on the deck and after 6 hours of crossing, they arrived at Port Vendres. The compromise that France reached with the Spanish Republic was not to allow them to return to Spain through the Basque Country, but many of them did. After this group left, the French embassy still placed 100 more people there and evacuated them in a few weeks by the same method, 95 were Spanish and 5 deserters from the International brigades. Border and port control in Caldetes was not very strict.
Many of the refugees in the French embassy would have been detained and their fate would have been highly uncertain without the efforts of a group of French diplomats, who made it possible for these 550 people to change their fate. Can Valls, where tragedy had lacerated its walls, witnessed this other radically opposite episode.
