30 Years of Darkness: The Mole of Mijas in the Spanish Civil War | Spanish History Documentary

Victory did not mean peace. The regime continued to kill the thousands and thousands of Spaniards who suffered all that, exile, prison, death, the work fields, the impoverishment that it meant for the country. Spain became a medieval country again. Today it is difficult, and I suppose that always, to imagine what went through the heads and hearts of these people like Manuel Cortés. Because even feeling safe in his hole, he had the anguish of not knowing when that was going to end. When he was going to get out of there, what was he going to do with his wife and daughter? I think that at this moment, all the questions in the world can come to your head. These people had to have very strong security measures, as they say now, to stay alive. The first security measure was to make a pact of silence. The fewer people knew that I had returned, the safer I would be. I even remained hidden from my own daughter. She and Juliana would continue to live in our house, and I had to remain hidden from my father so as not to raise suspicions. To survive in a couple of square meters, I had to follow a strict discipline. Only in this way would I be able not to be discovered. I had to learn not to make noise. I couldn't cough or move, especially when there were visitors. I couldn't get sick, because I couldn't go to the doctor. It was essential to stay as long as possible inside that hole if I wanted to continue with life. The real root of fear was the records. Past fear no longer existed, but they feared that the records could find them, and that increased their anxiety and fear. And maybe, I don't know, some took advantage of that characteristic of Spanish life that still exists in other countries, of living with the doors open. So, of course, I guess there were people in the East who thought, if I have my door open, anyone who passes by knows that there is nothing inside. In the first months, I was calm, because the guards only recorded the house where Juliana lived. But after a while, they also began to record my father's house. Although I was terrified, I focused on not making the slightest noise. Tell us where your son is. I don't know anything about my son, Manuel. Tell us the truth! Speak up! I don't know anything about my son since he went to war. Don't lie to me! The guards left threatening that sooner or later they would kill me. For years, I had the same nightmare over and over again. Sometimes they caught me, and sometimes I escaped. But I always woke up, and today I still have the same fear. The family was greatly affected by the detentions, by these attitudes of hiding. A large part of these women already had the habit of working, and of all kinds of work, to get ahead. That's why no one was surprised that a single woman could take her children out of the family without a husband. In those years, the husband was the one who ran the house, he was the one who more or less managed the house, because for him, it felt a bit like heaven on the left. The day I locked myself up, I thought it would be a matter of weeks, but months had passed and I still couldn't be with my daughter, with my María. It's terrible to have your daughter so close and not be able to touch her. Time passed, and every time I came back from work, I found him sadder and more depressed. So one night, I took my daughter and told her that we were going to see her father. It was a great relief for Manuel. After almost a year of confinement, he had finally stopped hiding from our daughter. María, on the other hand, was very scared. I had to tell her that if I told our secret to anyone, they would put us in jail and kill her father. Yes, it caused her a lot of problems. A lot of problems, because my grandmother didn't want me to go to school. Just where the school was, there was the Guardia Civil's barracks. And that was for the girl, and it was every day, no matter how little she had, milk or whatever, she would go to the barracks and start vomiting. Someone came to say that Manuel Cortés was alive, that he hadn't died in the front, and that he was lost in the mountains, waiting for the right moment to return home. One day, when Juliana had gone out to the countryside to go around the farms and collect eggs, and was coming back, this young guy came up to her and said, I think I have seen your husband, and he's in the Sierra. Your husband said to me, to tell you to bring him some money. Juliana knew straight away that this was blackmail, but she went where Manuel was hiding, and he said, very cleverly, you must go to the Guardia Civil straight away and denounce this guy. This evening, when that young man comes to demand the money from you again, you must bring in a Guardia Civil into the house. If you've got a Guardia Civil in the house, you can be sure that no one is going to think that I'm hidden here. We thought it was all over, but the Guardia Civil came looking for me again at dawn. They made me go to the barracks with my daughter. The man who tried to deceive me had accused some shepherds of having seen my husband. Those poor men couldn't know where Manuel was hiding, but they interrogated them one by one. You always go around the mountains with a knife. I'm sure you've seen Cortés. Tell me where he is, or I'll kill you. And they weren't there, watching him. Speak! Speak! That's why they had taken me. When I left, a guard who was a childhood friend of ours He told me that my husband should never return. He was too dangerous. I don't think they got much sleep that night, though. And she remembers it as a very terrible experience, because, as I say, she wanted to save these innocent people, but she couldn't, because, obviously, she wasn't going to give her husband away. Many people have asked, why didn't Manuel try to escape while the Second World War was on, in the immediate post-Spanish Civil War? It was actually impossible. Spain itself was full of police controls, etc. Portugal was under the Salazar dictatorship, which had sided with Franco during the Civil War. The Nazis occupied the northern part of France. Morocco was under Franco's dictatorship. And wherever you went, he would have been, without papers, official papers, he would have been picked up very, very quickly. So it was impossible, actually, then, to escape. After about four or five years of being hidden in the wall in his father's house, Manuel decided that it was impossible for him to go on hiding there. It was just too uncomfortable. He had never expected to spend even four or five months. Then came the big question, how was Manuel to move into that house? It was about 250 metres down the street from his father's house. She said, I've got it. You will dress up as an old woman. You will walk down the street. We will do it at night. They were afraid someone would see two women, a fake one. They had to take a risk. It was the first time I'd set foot on the street after so many years. I was on the street, but it was a very strange feeling, as if the street didn't belong to me. He was so nervous that he didn't know if he would be able to do it. And suddenly, as if it were a gift from heaven, it started to rain. Although the rain made it more difficult to recognize us, I kept walking as if I were an old woman. I was taking small steps, being very careful not to trip on the asphalt. My father and my daughter were waiting for us in the new house, which was just a few metres away. It was the longest two minutes of my life. When we heard the slightest noise from inside a house, we were paralyzed. I was so distressed that I didn't know if the noises were real or just in my head. I just thought that at any moment any neighbour could come out and discover us. And without thinking twice, I stood up and started running towards the house. It was a two-storey house with a huge staircase between one and the other. And they saw that there was a possibility of building a discreet room, even putting a mattress, a chair or a small furniture. They had to wait for Easter. And they took advantage of the fact that the thrones were in front of the house. They took advantage of the speed to build a wall that reached the floor above the staircase. The new hiding place was safer and bigger than the previous one. You entered through a false slab located in the basement. I started helping Juliana working in the esparto. It was still closed, but at least I had an occupation to spend the day with. Manuel had more freedom to move around the house and, in addition to his hiding place, he had all the space to hide. Although the best thing was that after so many years we slept together again. I would think that it was three or four years in the new house, in the second house, before they were able to buy a radio. And when they did, of course, it was Manuel's lifeline to the outside world. My hope was that, at the end of the Second World War, the allied troops, after defeating the Nazis, could also intervene in Spain to end Franco's regime. The German armed forces have finally succumbed to crushing superiority. The radio helped a lot. As the years went by, I became a little more careless because I didn't want people to see it. And my grandmother had an excessive obsession because no one could see it, because no one could get any clue that it was there. However, my grandfather became more and more careless. Looking out the window was practically the only distraction I had. I also liked spying on the people who came to the house. My wife scolded me a lot. She told me that sooner or later someone would end up seeing it. He kept looking without any precaution. So I had to put up a curtain so that he could see without being seen. We still argued a lot about his carelessness. Manuel thought he had everything under control, but he didn't. Mrs. Juliana? A friend of Maria's actually came into the house. He didn't realize that she was there, and he suddenly appeared, and, of course, both of them were staggered. The child, of course, didn't know who he was. Juliana went immediately to the neighbor and said, that was my brother, or some relative, anyway, who'd come to the house to see her. And that was that, and nothing came of any of that. The truth is that after the incident, Manuel was quite afraid to walk around the house and hardly left the hideout. Without realizing it, a year had passed since the end of the Second World War. Spain had been isolated internationally, and the Allies had no intention of intervening against Franco. The world had changed, but for us, everything was still the same. When the hope of the arrival of the Allies in Spain fades away, Manuel Cortés throws himself at a last resort, almost suicide. He had a cousin, apparently, who was very close or inside the phalanx. Then he decides to take a risk, to confess his existence to this cousin to escape from his prison. I told him my story. My cousin got very emotional, he gave me a big hug and said that he was going to help me escape from Spain. And the next day I began to explain to him my escape plan. What I told him was that he had to wait for the right moment. I guess it wasn't just a political moment, but that it would be good for him and for the other people who would be involved. The falsification of documents and the planning of the escape led us to the conclusion that everything seemed to be going well until one day Juliana came with the news. With the failed escape plan, all our hopes vanished suddenly. No one would know that Manuel had survived. No one would know his innocence or the enormous punishment he had received. Over time, I began to accept that being locked up would be something for life. Every day became the same day. Every night, the same night. Every year, the same year. Hidden in my father's death. Hidden in my daughter's wedding. Hidden even in the death of my first granddaughter. Always hidden.