Antonio Gan Vargas ‘Cubano’ (Málaga, 31 July 1917 – Benagéber, 25 March 1947) was one of the anti-Franco guerrilla fighters of the Agrupación Guerrillera de Levante y Aragón (AGLA).
During the Civil War, he was part of the XIV Cuerpo de Ejército Guerrillero, commanded by Domingo Ungría. When the war ended, after being detained in the Albatera concentration camp and the Porta Coeli prison, he joined the armed groups of the Partido Comunista de España (PCE) in Valencia and later the maquis, forming part of the "11th sector" of the AGLA, which operated in the mountains between Valencia and Cuenca, in the region of Los Serranos. He was known by the nicknames ‘Cubano’ and ‘Vargas’.
On 18 March 1947, he was wounded in a clash with the Guardia Civil near Requena and was hidden for several days by his comrades in various safe houses until 25 March, when he was surprised and machine-gunned in one of these houses in the village of Nieva, in Benagéber (Valencia). Between that day and the next, the Guardia Civil killed seven more men who were buried unidentified in the local cemetery, from where they were exhumed in March 2010.
Biography
Childhood and family Antonio Gan Vargas was born in Málaga in 1917, although his father, Juan Gan Arcos, and his mother, Juana Vargas Arcos, were from Doña Mencía (Córdoba). Around 1915 or 1916, Juan Gan moved with his wife and three older children to Málaga, where Antonio and his two other siblings were born. Around 1928, ruined, Juan Gan and his family settled in Vallecas, then an independent municipality and since 1950 a neighborhood of Madrid.
When Franco's uprising took place in 1936, Antonio joined the Republican Ejército Popular as a specialist in sabotage and guerrilla warfare, first assigned to the so-called ‘Brigada Especial Ungría,’ from where he would move on to a guerrilla group of the International Brigades called the 'Batallón de Instrucción de Defensa contra Aeronaves' (BIDCA), which, in turn, later became part of the 'XIV Cuerpo de Ejército Guerrillero'.Blasco Verdú, Domingo y Cabrera Castillo, Francisco: El frente invisible: guerrilleros republicanos 1936-1939; de los "niños de la noche" al "XIV Cuerpo", Guadalajara, Silente, 2013.
We have direct accounts of the beginnings of the group led by Domingo Ungría from Russian adviser Ilya StarinovStarinov, Ilia: Over the Abyss: My Life in Soviet Special Operations, New York, Ivy Books, 1995, pp. 70–143. and his translator and later wife, Anna Kornilovna Starinova.Starinov[a], A[nna] K[ornilovna]: Behind the fascist lines: a firsthand account of guerrilla warfare during the Spanish revolution, Nueva York, Ballantine, 2001. Starinov was a soldier with experience in this type of action during the Russian Civil War and played a key role in training Ungría's unit until his departure from Spain. In February 1937, Antonio Gan was already part of this unit and was stationed on the Andalusian front. On the 18th of that month, he and five other men, accompanied by two guides, attempted to blow up the railway line at El Montón de la Tierra, near Alcolea, without success. The Stárinovs describe actions around that time in Alcolea, Pozoblanco and other towns near Córdoba. In April 1937, the General Staff created a ‘Batallón de Guerrilleros’ under the command of Major Alberto Calderón Martínez, and Ungría's group was incorporated into it as the ‘3rd Company’. On 12 October, Antonio participated, as Lieutenant of the ‘5th Company of the Batallón de Guerrilleros’, in command of four men, in the placement of explosive devices on the Zuera-Jaca railway line on the Aragon front.
The 'Batallón de Instrucción de Defensa contra Aeronaves' (BIDCA) adopted this name in November 1937 and was initially commanded by Major Luis Cordes, also a Soviet advisor.Brossat, Alain: Agenti di Mosca: lo stalinismo e la sua ombra, Bari: Edizioni Dedalo, 1991, p. 185. Towards the end of that same year, the Yugoslav Ljubo Ilić took command. The BIDCA then consisted of three sections with a total of 1,306 men and 263 officers and non-commissioned officers, including Antonio Gan who, with the rank of lieutenant,The appointment appeared in the Diario Oficial del Ministerio de Defensa Nacional, 17 December 1938, p. 95. was part of the section commanded by Ilić himself – assisted by Antonio Buitrago – and which operated in Andalusia.
The 'XIV Cuerpo de Ejército Guerrillero' On 3 February 1938, Vicente Rojo ordered the creation of the 'XIV Cuerpo de Ejército Guerrillero', whose main training camp was in Benimámet, on the outskirts of Valencia. This unit, which despite its name ‘Army Corps’ (Cuerpo de Ejército) only had a few thousand men, was under the command of Domingo Ungría, who continued to be advised by Soviet military personnel. One of its most spectacular actions was the liberation of 300 Republican prisoners from Fort Carchuna, about 10 kilometres east of Motril, on 23 May 1938.
Antonio Gan belonged to the 230th Brigade (actually the former ‘5th Company’) of the 'XIV Cuerpo de Ejército', commanded by Major José Carnicer and attached to the Andalusian front, although it would also be deployed in April 1938 to the Aragon front, where it took part in the risky operation to aid the ’Bolsa de Bielsa" (Bielsa Pocket), where the 43rd Republican Division was trapped. At that time, Gan was ‘Captain-in-Chief’ of that brigade after replacing the deceased Alex Künstlich in command in May 1938.
On 5 March 1939, Colonel Casado staged a coup on the Republican side, triggering the end of the war, and the following day Casado's 'Junta' dissolved the 'XIV Cuerpo de Ejército'. Some of its units were trapped in the large pocket of Alicante, unable to leave the country, and, of course, they remained loyal to the Communists during those days. Among other interventions, when the President of the Government, Juan Negrín, took up residence on 25 February at the ‘Yuste Position’ on an estate in Petrer (Alicante), 300 men from the 'XIV Cuerpo de Ejército' were in charge of the garrison; on 6 March, they also protected the take-off from El Hondón aerodrome (Monóvar, Alicante) of three aeroplanes carrying the leaders of the PCE on their way into exile.
Albatera Camp: 1939 When the war ended, Antonio Gan was sent to the concentration camp in El Saladar, Albatera (Alicante). It is highly likely that he was also among the twenty to thirty thousand people who waited in the port of Alicante in the last days of March for an evacuation by ship that never came. Taken prisoner by Franco's army, most of them were taken to the so-called Campo de los Almendros, very close to the city, on 1 April. There they remained for several days without food or water and in the open, with no protection or shelter other than what they were wearing. Shortly afterwards, on 7 April, they were all marched to the Albatera camp.
The camp would eventually hold between 14,000 and 20,000 prisoners from Franco's victory until its closure in December 1939, and its conditions of accommodation and, above all, food were very poor. When it rained, there was nowhere to shelter; the latrines consisted of a ditch and, of course, there was no way to wash. The treatment of prisoners was – as in all camps – humiliating and tyrannical, and there were repeated executions without trial, usually for failed escape attempts. The camp was closed in October 1939, once the authorities had finished classifying the prisoners to find out “who was who”.
[After several days without food] ‘We began to receive a 200 g tin of sardines for two and a 250 g loaf of bread for five [...] We were supplied by a 4,000-litre tanker, which was clearly insufficient [for more than 12,000 people].’
'On Tuesday, 11 April, we had a quarter of a tin of cooked lentils and a fifth of a loaf of bread. On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, we ate absolutely nothing. On Saturday the 15th, we were given a tin of sardines for three and a loaf of bread for five. Then we fasted again completely on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, to receive another 66 grams of sardines and about 40 grams of bread on Friday."Guzmán, Eduardo de: El Año de la Victoria, Madrid, G. del Toro, 1974; the book recounts his passage through Campo de los Almendros and Albatera until his transfer to Madrid in mid-June 1939.
Albatera was home to many communist leaders and intellectuals, such as the future historian Manuel Tuñón de Lara, the poet Marcos Ana, several maquis members who will be discussed later, and the communist leader ‘Heriberto Quiñones’. Today, part of the land has been developed, although a small hut that appears to have been used as a storeroom or kitchen still remains. Max Aub wrote a novel – undoubtedly based on many first-hand accounts – about his days in the port of Alicante, Campo de los Almendros and Albatera, entitled Campo de los Almendros.Mexico City, Joaquín Mortiz, 1968. Pages 293 onwards. See also Gabarda Cebellán, Vicent: Els afusellaments al País Valencià (1938-1956), Valencia: Edicions Alfons El Magnànim, 1993, pages 42-44; Rodrigo, Javier: “Internamiento y trabajo forzoso: los campos de concentración de Franco” , in Hispania Nova: revista de historia contemporánea, 6, (2006), dossier.
Porta Coeli Prison and Padre Jofré Sanatorium: October 1939 – October 1942 In the autumn of 1939, according to Sixto Agudo, all the prisoners in Albatera were taken to the Porta Coeli tuberculosis sanatorium in Serra (Valencia), about twelve kilometres north of Bétera, which was also functioning as a concentration camp at the time; in all likelihood, Antonio Gan must have made the same journey. Shortly after the transfer from Albatera, Porta Coeli went from being a ‘camp’ to becoming a prison, and the prisoners were ‘transferred’ from one establishment to another – from an administrative point of view – and duly registered. Antonio Gan's fileAntonio Gan's file in the archives of Porta Coeli prison (Valencia) – now kept at Picassent prison (Valencia). shows his date of entry as 1 December 1939, ‘coming from the dissolved Porta Coeli Prisoner Concentration Camp’. Shortly afterwards, on 15 January 1940, due to ‘symptoms of mental alienation’, Antonio was transferred to the Padre Jofré psychiatric sanatorium in Valencia.Archivo General y Fotográfico de la Diputación de Valencia, located in what was formerly the sanatorium's ‘Pabellón de Privados’. His medical records (number 8,297 of the Manicomio Provincial de Valencia) are kept in the Archive of the Hospital Psiquiátrico Provincial Padre Jofré (Bétera, Valencia). Two and a half years later, on 15 September 1942, Gan returned to Porta Coeli and was released a month later.
To arms once again: Valencia 1943–1946