The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain. Paul Preston
oil. Believing that they were now safe, they stayed in the town but were arrested again. Cristóbal’s brother Francisco pleaded for their lives with the Captain of the Civil Guard, who replied that he would spare only one and that Francisco must choose. He chose his brother. Between July 1936 and February 1937, a total of 102 men and nine women were executed in Villamartín.24 Three women were murdered in Bornos, two in Espera, one in Puerto Serrano, one in Arcos de la Frontera, at least ten in Ubrique and five in Olvera.25
These first killings were carried out under the umbrella of the proclamation of martial law, the Bando de Guerra, based on that issued by Queipo de Llano on 18 July. In every town and province across Western Andalusia, although the wording might vary slightly, the sweeping terms of the edict (bando) effectively decreed that anyone who opposed the rising would be shot.26 Those who carried out the killings could then claim airily that they were ‘applying the Bando de Guerra’. With no judicial basis, men were taken out and shot, their bodies left by the roadside to rot. In fact, Queipo de Llano had no authority to issue such an edict.27
Queipo de Llano wrote to López Pinto on 4 August urging him to speed up the process of eliminating the left in Cádiz. With the first African columns having left Seville for Madrid on 2 and 3 August, he wrote: ‘This will be over soon! It won’t last more than another ten days. By then it is crucial that you have finished off all the gunmen and communists in your province.’ When a new judge made inquiries about the progress of the trial of the prominent Republicans in Cádiz, he was informed that it had been shelved ‘as a result of the death of the individuals concerned by dint of the application to them of the edict of martial law of 18 July 1936’.28
Queipo de Llano’s letter reflected a key moment in the repression. The towns and villages of Cádiz, Huelva and Seville and much of Córdoba and Granada had fallen to the insurgents. The population of this territory was predominantly Republican, Socialist and anarcho-syndicalist in its sympathies. To prevent any rebellion in the rear as the columns moved north, the repression was to be intensified. Prisoners were to be killed. Two days after sending the letter, Queipo de Llano backed up its sentiments by posting the retired Lieutenant Colonel Eduardo Valera Valverde to be Civil Governor of the province of Cádiz. Valera was instructed to ‘proceed with greater energy’. In Sanlúcar de Barrameda the occupying forces began more systematic executions from 8 August. In Puerto Real, near the provincial capital, the Mayor had prevented anti-clerical disturbances and the burning of a convent on the night of 18 July. Nevertheless, he had been arrested the following day. He was a bookseller, a moderate Republican of Azaña’s Izquierda Republicana. Despite pleas on his behalf by the Mother Superior of the convent, he was killed without any trial on 21 August. Two months later, his bookshop, already ransacked by Falangists, was confiscated.29
In the meantime, in the villages between Villamartín and Ubrique, such as Benamahoma, the Mora-Figueroa column arrested the mayors and imposed new town councils. Using Olvera as their base, they advanced over the provincial border into Seville and conquered the town of Pruna on 18 August, and the villages of Villanueva de San Juan and Algámitas four days later. The local landowners and right-wingers who had been placed in protective custody by the Popular Front authorities claimed that the column had arrived just in time to save them from horrendous atrocities. It was not explained why the left had waited so long before contemplating such atrocities.30
The repression in Benamahoma was undertaken by a notorious gang known as the ‘Lions of Rota’, consisting of self-declared Falangists led by Fernando Zamacola, a man from Galicia with a record of assault and armed robbery. At a post-war investigation into Zamacola’s crimes, it was revealed that more than fifty people had been executed including several women. The town postman was shot along with his fifteen-year-old son. Members of the Lions testified that Juan Vadillo, the local commander of the Civil Guard, had ordered the shootings to cover up the appalling beatings inflicted on those arrested. As well as murders, there was also considerable theft of the property of those detained and sexual abuse of the wives of men who had fled or been shot. These women were forced to clean the Civil Guard barracks and the offices of the Falange and made to dance at parties organized by Zamacola’s men. As well as cases of head-shaving and the use of castor oil, several were raped by both Vadillo and Zamacola.31 Zamacola was awarded Spain’s highest military decoration, the Gran Cruz Laureada de San Fernando.32
Meanwhile, Mora-Figueroa’s column made daily expeditions to mop up after the troops who conquered the smaller towns to the north of the province, Ubrique, Alcalá del Valle and Setenil. Many local Republicans and trade unionists had fled to the sierra around Ubrique, fearing reprisals. However, when on 24 July a light aeroplane dropped leaflets announcing that anyone without blood on their hands had nothing to fear, many of them returned. Most of these trusting souls, including the Mayor, were shot in the course of the following weeks. A member of Izquierda Republicana, the Mayor owned a prosperous bakery and olive press. By providing cheap bread for the poor, he had earned the enmity of the local oligarchy. He was tortured and forced to hand over substantial sums of money before being shot. At least 149 people were executed in Ubrique.33
In nearby Alcalá del Valle, the local Civil Guard had handed over its guns to a rapidly created Comité de Defensa. Weapons held by local rightists were confiscated and several of the men were imprisoned but none was physically harmed. The parish church was requisitioned as the Comité’s headquarters, its altar, statues and religious images destroyed. The town was briefly occupied on 25 August by a force of twenty Civil Guards and Manuel Mora-Figueroa’s Falangists. After it had been driven off, a group of anarchist militia arrived from Ronda in the neighbouring province of Málaga and began to loot the houses of local right-wingers until they were stopped by the Comité de Defensa. On 18 September, the town was finally reoccupied by rebel units including Mora-Figueroa’s column. The repression in Alcalá del Valle was sweeping, aiming to eradicate left-wing individuals, organizations and ideas. Knowing what the columns had done in nearby towns, many inhabitants of Alcalá del Valle had already fled. These included those who had held posts in Republican parties, trade unions or institutions. The victims were thus those who had stayed confident that, being guilty of no crimes, they had nothing to fear. There was no pretence of trials. Twenty-six men and four women were picked up off the street or from their houses, tortured and then shot.34
While the various paramilitary forces purged the province of Cádiz, a similar process was taking place in Seville. There the right-wing victory was attributed by Gonzalo Queipo de Llano to his personal daring and brilliance. Within a year of the events, he claimed that he had captured the city against overwhelming odds with the help of only 130 soldiers and fifteen civilians. In a radio broadcast on 1 February 1938, he made an even wilder exaggeration, declaring that he had taken the city with fourteen or fifteen men.35 He claimed that he been opposed by a force of over 100,000 well-armed ‘communists’. In fact, the defeated workers had had between them only eighty rifles and little ammunition and were armed, if at all, with hunting shotguns, ancient pistols and knives.36
Far from being an act of spontaneous heroism, the coup had been meticulously planned by a major of the General Staff stationed in Seville, José Cuesta Monereo, and was carried out by a force of four thousand men. The commander of the Seville Military Region, General José de Fernández Villa-Abrille, and his senior staff were aware of what was being hatched. They did nothing to impede the plot, despite the pleas of the Civil Governor, José María Varela Rendueles.37 Nevertheless, Queipo had them arrested and tried for military rebellion. The majority of the Seville garrison were involved in the coup, including units of artillery, cavalry, communications, transport and the Civil Guard. This is clear even from the lists included in the hymn of praise to Queipo composed by the journalist Enrique Vila.38 After artillery bombardment, this large force seized the telephone exchange, the town hall and the Civil Governor’s headquarters, blocked the main access routes into the centre and then applied indiscriminate terror.39
The subsequent crushing of working-class resistance was undertaken by Major Antonio Castejón Espinosa. According to Castejón himself, with fifty Legionarios, fifty Carlist Requetés, fifty Falangists and another fifty Civil Guards, they immediately began the bloody suppression of the workers’ districts of Triana,