Franco’s Spain revealed from the inside out

By David Steinberg / Journal Staff Writer on Sat, Feb 4, 2012

Martha Heard of Albuquerque will chat about her long-running oral-history project in a talk titled “Revolution Within a Civil War” at 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 11, at the National Hispanic Cultural Center.
The project is centered on the period of the Spanish Civil War during and after the dictatorship of Generalissimo Francisco Franco in Càlig, an agricultural town in the Castellón province of Spain.
“When I started doing the interviews, a doctor in the village introduced me to two guys who were anarchists. I talked to them for 23 hours-plus on cassette tape,” Heard said. “I got interested in their story, particularly what happened in the Civil War in the village and the anarchist collective they set up. … The anarchists had collectivized the (almond) factories and the property of big landowners.”
She said she also learned about the conflicts in the village with the other political factions — the Republicanos and other moderates and the Fascists, which included Monarchists.
“It was very fractured,” Heard said of the political landscape.
Her talk will emphasize the period from July 18, 1936, the date that Franco’s troops entered the village as the anarchists and Republicanos fled, to April 15, 1938.
Heard had bought a house in Càlig in 1977, which gave her an entree to villagers. She received a grant to start the oral-history project. In 1999, when she retired from teaching in colleges and at Highland High School, Heard gradually got back into the project. She is writing a book based on it.
Castellón is on the east coast of Spain. Heard’s talk is part of the NHCC’s Resolana series. It is free.
The NHCC is at 1701 Fourth SW.