“I saw Tunisia as a mirror of the sun.” With these words, Bonifacio Caparrós summarizes his first impressions upon arriving in Tunisia in 1950. This Cartagena native, now 85 years old, was only 11 when he set foot in that corner of North Africa. He wasn’t alone. His mother traveled with him, on a journey full of hope and emotion: the reunion with his father, a man Caparrós had never even met. His father, a Republican lieutenant from Cartagena, had fled Spain a decade earlier, at the end of the Civil War. The Franco repression that followed the victory of the national side turned his departure into a matter of survival.
The story of the Caparrós family is just one among thousands. An estimated 15,000 people sought refuge in the Maghreb, the region of North Africa that includes countries such as Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. These figures reflect a less known exodus, carried out by common people from the popular classes. Lacking intellectual or artistic figures to document their experience, their exile remained largely invisible. Now, more than 80 years later, the Arab House of Madrid rescues these memories with the exhibition ‘Of the exodus and the wind: the Spanish exile in the Maghreb (1939-1962)’, which will be open to the public until March 23, 2025.
For Bonifacio, arriving at La Goulette, a port near the city of Tunis, was a relief. “I had Arab and Jewish friends, and there were many Europeans. There was no distinction between races or contempt,” he recalls. In this multicultural and diverse environment, for the first time in his life he enjoyed things that had been unthinkable in Spain during his childhood marked by war and scarcity. “I had my first toy, a beautiful bicycle,” he says wistfully. He also discovered the smell of coffee, a luxury that until then had been foreign to him. “I was used to eating bean shells,” he confesses.
However, his father’s path was very different. Like many republicans, he fled to Africa in 1939, in one of the first large waves of exile after the end of the war. In this first exodus, it is estimated that about 4,000 people left Cartagena.
Stanbrook and the journey into exile
The sea route was the most used by those fleeing to Africa. All types of vessels were used, from small fishing boats to submarines. One of the most emblematic was the Stanbrook, a ship that managed to rescue more than 3,000 people in a single trip. He set sail from the Levantine coast and landed in Oran (Algeria) on March 30, 1939. This was a moment of salvation for thousands, but also the beginning of a long path full of challenges.
“Many expected to be well received by the French government, which controlled the colonies in North Africa,” says Juan Valbuena, curator of the exhibition at the Casa Arabe. But the reality was much crueler. The exiles were deprived of free movement and confined to camps where they were forced to perform forced labor. “At first they were called reception camps, but they soon became concentration camps,” explains Valbuena. Despite the harsh conditions, the exiles managed to organize themselves to maintain some normality: they founded schools, published small newspapers and even learned new languages.
The hardness of the fields
Some photographs taken in the fields show seemingly joyful scenes. Smiling exiles pose in front of the camera, but these images do not reflect the full reality. “It is the well-known ‘Sunday bias’,” clarifies Valbuena. Sundays were days of rest, the only time they did not work, and photographs tend to capture these moments of respite.
Not all fields were the same. One of the most feared was that of Djelfa, located in the interior of Algeria. Those considered “wayward” were sent there, those who questioned orders or tried to rebel. According to exiliologist José María Santacreu, from the University of Alicante, the conditions in Djelfa were extreme. “The heat during the day was unbearable and at night the temperatures plummeted,” he describes. Among those held in Djelfa was the poet of the Generation of ’27, Max Aub. “In Djelfa he dedicated himself to making espadrilles,” reveals María José Calpe, archivist at the Max Aub Foundation. The author remained in this field between 1941 and 1942, before managing to leave for Mexico. “At that time he wrote his collection of poems ‘Diario de Djelfa’,” says Calpe.
Among the most remembered forced labor is the construction of the trans-Saharan railway, an ambitious project that sought to connect the Mediterranean with the Atlantic through the Sahara desert. Around 2,000 men worked on different sections of this monumental work, which was never completed. The hardness of the work was recorded thanks to Segundo Costa, an exiled photographer who documented the workers’ days. “These photos are the jewel in the crown of the exhibition,” says Valbuena, highlighting their historical and human value.
A new opportunity
In 1943, the liberation of the camps by the American army brought some hope. But the options for the exiles remained limited: making a living in the cities of the Maghreb, emigrating to America or enlisting in the allied armies. About 1,000 exiles opted for this last alternative, fighting in the Second World War alongside France. But not even this victory allowed them to return to Spain, where the Franco dictatorship was still in force.
For those who were unable to return or emigrate, life in Africa continued. Many started families and moved to cities in French Morocco, such as Casablanca. In these cities, the exiles tried to rebuild their lives and preserve their culture. An example of this was the founding of the Armonía Cultural Association, a space that became a refuge for Spaniards in exile. Activities, community meals and social gatherings were organized there. At the entrance to the center you could read a phrase that summed up the feeling of those who frequented it: “This is the house of the Spaniards of exodus and wind.” A few words that inspired the title of this exhibition that today seeks to restore his memory.
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