Emilio Lledó says that we are memory and we live from that memory. Yesterday, Ángeles Flórez Peón passed away at the age of 105, and on this occasion I cannot find a better phrase to affirm that she will continue to live on in her memory.
Probably, Ángeles would have lived a bland personal story and today I would not be writing this obituary. The difference is that, during her 105 years, her life takes place in a historical period of intense emotions, where joys, hopes and great illusions occur, the outbreak of war, repression, enormous suffering, hardships and exile. Convulsive moments in which she always maintains her convictions and her permanent integrity.
It was born in a mining municipality with a strong socialist commitment (San Martín del Rey Aurelio). As a child she parades hand in hand with her mother to celebrate, with joy, hope and desire for freedom, the arrival of the Second Republic.
The family suffers enormous trauma from the murder, without trial, of his brother in the repression of the Revolution of 1934, which motivated the transfer of the family to the place where “the martyrs of Carbayín” “fell.” He joins the Socialist Youth and there begins his eventful personal and political life. That’s where Maricuela was born.
Maricuela was the character that Ángeles played in the play Up with the poor of the world. But, just when it was going to be performed, the coup d’état occurred and the beginning of the Civil War.
He joins the militia to defend the Republic. He saves his life thanks to the help of Quintín, a boyfriend from his youth, who would end up shot. She is arrested and admitted to the Oviedo prison and later transferred to the Saturrarán prison. In prison, from her cell, she listened to how fellow prisoners were taken out to be shot. That’s why she assured:
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“What truly keeps me alive and active is that desire to remember all those women who were tortured, murdered without trial and erased from history.” “Without memory we are nothing.”
In prison he will not have a better life: terrible, unhealthy conditions, humiliating treatment, inhuman punishments. But Maricuela does not deny and when she leaves the prison she marries Chano, her partner and father of her children. Both were active underground in the years of greatest persecution and repression. Faced with the imminent risk of arrest, first her husband goes into exile and later, with her daughter, with the courage that characterized her, she risks a dangerous clandestine trip to France with the girl in her arms. . In exile she continues to militate and, after the death of her husband, she returns to Asturias.
He is actively active and writes two books where he tells his entire story. No just cause is foreign to him. At more than 90 years old, she participated in the “freedom train”, in the Pride parade, in the defense of pensions. He dies worried about the rise of fascism. But if one had to highlight his main interest it would be, without a doubt, the need of youth in the fight for rights and freedoms. She was honorary president of the Socialist Youth of Asturias.
Despite everything, he often repeats: “I don’t know why you give me so many tributes and recognitions. I don’t deserve them, I didn’t do anything special”.
Precisely, what makes his life extraordinary was his unreserved involvement in every moment and circumstance. He did not miss any opportunity to defend his ideals of social justice, freedoms and worker emancipation, as he liked to say.
Thank you, Ángeles, for your commitment, coherence, fortitude. For giving us that example of militancy in ideals, for such a generous life.
Maricuela will continue to live on in our memories.
Luisa Carcedo She is a former Minister of Health, State Counselor and president of the Pablo Iglesias Foundation.
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