José Brocca (Professor José Felix Serafino Alearelo Brocca Ramón, 16 April 1891 – 1950) was a pacifist and humanitarian of the Spanish Civil War, (Prasad, 2005) who allied himself with the Republicans but sought nonviolent ways of resisting the Nationalist rebels.
His parents were Spanish and Italian. He was born at Calle de Zaura no.4, Almería, Andalucia, where his father, Antonio Brocca y Migna, was the Italian Consul. Brocca's mother, Carmen Ladehessa Ramón Vicente, was a former opera singer who had performed in Milan.
A forgotten history Many people's perception of the Spanish Civil War is one of two monolithic 'sides': a war of the Republicans against the Nationalists. In fact it was by no means as simple as that, and although it was the Republican cause that was more seriously undermined by internal power struggles, there were many factions and sub-groups within both the main groupings. Almost completely overlooked by mainstream historians, there was also a vigorous element of pacifism, and the work of the Spanish arm of the organisation War Resisters' International (WRI) is almost totally forgotten in popular history and neglected by academics. Similarly, and perhaps inevitably, the history of military assistance, particularly through the International Brigades, is far better documented than the role of people dedicated to non-violence, civilian initiatives and non-governmental organisations. There are many forgotten non-military histories from the Spanish Civil War. These include, for example, the work of organisations such as the UK's National Joint Committee for Spanish Relief and Basque Children's Committee; the stories of refugees, including political exiles and evacuated children; and the activities of the merchant seafarers who evaded the Francoist blockades to deliver supplies to Republican ports. One such hero was Captain David John Jones, known as 'Swansea Jones' in Wales, 'El Patatero' to the Republicans, and 'Potato Jones' to the world's press. (See )
Viator
As with many families, civil war meant uncertainty, movement and separation; but José Brocca's children regarded their formative years as having been spent in the small town of Viator, near Almería, and it is to Viator that family members have returned in order to visit the area with which they feel Brocca is most closely associated.There are also strong connections with Cuevas del Almanzora where the family lived in Calle de Cervantes for several years. Brocca was a school director at Viator in the early 1930s, and he earned a reputation as a respected community leader. For example, he was instrumental in defying local commercial interests who wanted to prevent a project to bring water to a public fountain in the village. There was once a plaque at the water fountain in Viator commemorating this event, but it has since disappeared. A lifelong internationalist and political activist, Brocca was involved in setting up Escuelas Laicas (secular schools), an initiative which became part of the Republican policy programme.After the Civil War Laicism as a political movement in Spain went into deep hibernation until the government of Prime Minister Rodriguez Zapatero.Brocca's Ministry of Education record lists places of work in Jauro, Almeria, Cuevas del Almanzora, Viator and Madrid, with a total service of 22 years 9 months and 27 days.
Andalucia was quickly caught up in the violence and confusion of the Civil War, and one infamous incident was the shelling of the port of Almería by the Kriegsmarine. As is both metaphorically and literally the way with civil war, brother fought against brother. Brocca's five children were: Arnulfo, Helio, Irma Leticia, Olga Teresa and Humberto. Arnulfo, the eldest, found himself on the rebel side, rose quickly through the ranks, and eventually had a distinguished post-war career as a senior officer in the regular Spanish army, mainly in La Coruňa, before retiring to Huelva then Seville to live with his daughter and family. Humberto was drawn in on the Republican side and died of wounds and sickness contracted on the battlefields.
In spite of the horrors of war and the divisive nature of this war in particular, the four surviving brothers and sisters held warm memories of their childhood in Viator, and kept in touch in the post-war years.In view of the often violent persecution of the 'reds' that took place at least into the 1960s, the phrase 'post-war' is used here for want of a better term to describe the years following the official end of the war on 1 April 1939
Throughout his life Arnulfo spoke of his father as the 'greatest man who ever lived'. Helio died in 1968, Olga in 2004, Arnulfo in 2005 and Irma in 2009.
Brocca aligned himself with the socialist segment of the complex political spectrum in Spain, and represented Spanish pacifists at international meetings of the peace movement (the Orden del Olivo and War Resisters' International). He was a colleague of anarcha-feminist doctor Amparo Poch y Gascón. He believed that pacifists had to support the Republican cause, but he was first and foremost a humanitarian. There is a local story in Viator which suggests that he helped a Catholic priest escape assassination by giving him his car.Family testimony: local people have stated that without Brocca's intervention the priest would have been drowned in the river. From 1933 to 1937 Professor Brocca was in Madrid, where his work included being a school inspector and teaching at the university, while the family home continued to be in Viator. It is believed that at one stage Brocca also spent some time in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where his brother was living.The reasons for his spending time in Argentina are not clear, but one source (Hunter, 1939) states that Brocca was in 'exile' during part of the period of dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera. Brocca's Ministry of Education record indicates that he was away from November 1928 until he took up his post in Viator in August 1930.
A challenge to pacifism
Many active pacifists in Europe and the USA found it difficult or impossible to take a neutral view of the Spanish Civil War (Prasad, 2005). Some prominent members of pacifist organisations, like Dr. Albert Einstein, had already renounced pacifism altogether, as a reaction to Hitler's rise to power in Germany. Fenner Brockway resigned from WRI in the early days of the Spanish Civil War (although after World War II with the onset of the Cold War and the nuclear threat he re-affirmed a commitment to pacifism). José Brocca's opinion of the position in Spain was that: '...the people have had no alternative but to meet violence with violence. It is regrettable, but the entire responsibility for the tragic and bloody days we are enduring lies with those who...have let loose destruction and slaughter to defend, not ideals, but out-of-date and hateful privileges, tending to a set-back to medieval barbarism' (quoted in Brown, 1937).
Brocca's activism in response to the armed insurrection in Spain was widely quoted by pacifists in the UK and elsewhere as representing a role model. Herbert Runham Brown, Hon. Secretary of the WRI, asked 'What should I do if I were in Spain?' and in answer reproduced parts of a letter from Brocca in which he stated: 'In Barcelona, in Valencia, in the province of Cáceres and in Madrid I have acted, and continue to act, in such interesting tasks as stimulating, directing and organising the peasants so that instead of abandoning their agricultural work, even in those areas abandoned by the fascists in their flight, they work to avoid interruption in production and provision of supplies for the towns; in establishing and organising schools and homes for the children of those citizens who have fallen or who are fighting on the various fronts, and in general taking advantage of all opportunities to spread among the combatants our humanitarian ideals and our repugnance to oppression and cruelty' (Brown, 1937).
Brocca relinquished his government post in Madrid in order to dedicate himself to organising activities such as the purchase and distribution of food and clothing, which was imported through a dock at Valencia financed by the WRI for this purpose; and in Madrid he organised a women's committee to distribute food and collect information on people who were not able to reach relief centres (Bennett, 2003).
War children
During the war the French Catalan town of Prats-de-Mollo-la-Preste (near Perpignan) in the Pyrenees was the location of a refuge financed by the War Resisters' International and run by Professor Brocca and his wife. Helio, Irma and Olga were also there for a time, but were then sent, in the care of Brocca's sister-in-law, to stay with sympathisers in Rouen, until the defeat and occupation of France during the Second World War necessitated their escape from Normandy back to the south.In Normandy they were given hospitality by M. et Mme. Lechault who lived and worked in the municipality of Bois-Guillaume, where M. Lechault was the school caretaker at l'Ecole des Garçons.
The Prats-de-Mollo refuge housed children separated from their families, orphans and widows who had escaped from Spain; according to Hunter (1939), at any one time approximately forty people were in residence, and the care of an extra person would always take priority over the purchase of any little 'luxuries'. During his time there Professor Brocca became expert in finding pathways through the Pyrenees and crossed the border many times on various missions which took him in both directions. In effect, the refuge became part of an 'underground railroad' (Agirre, April 1996).
According to Bennett (2003) Brocca disliked traditional orphanages and children's institutions, which to him resembled prisons. Before the war he and Amparo Poch presented the Republican government's Ministry of Health with a plan for 'homes' that would be designed to shelter twenty-five children in the care of a surrogate mother and father. Under wartime conditions, the number of twenty-five was often exceeded, but Bennett records that as well as establishing several children's colonies in southern France, with WRI support Brocca settled five hundred children in Mexico. While the majority of the children came from Republican families, there is evidence in the Sayre Papers (Swarthmore College Peace Collection) that Brocca did not turn away orphans or lost children whose parents were Nationalists.
Escape and exile
After the Civil War had officially ended Professor Brocca refused to leave Prats-de-Mollo until all the children in his care had been returned to safety with their families in Spain. By this time his own life was seriously threatened by the occupying Nazis and their collaborators in Vichy France.
The Prats-de-Mollo refuge was near the route of one of the four main frontier crossings now being used by hundreds of thousands of Spanish refugees as the Republican collapse became inevitable. It was not an easy journey, involving mountain tracks impassable to motor transport. Amparo Poch y Gascón was one who used this route (Rodrigo 2002). She stayed at Prats-de-Mollo for some time before finally reaching Toulouse, where she was to live the rest of her life in exile, and it is reasonable to assume that she was given shelter at the WRI's refuge.