Roma Marquez Santo - veteran of Anarchist and POUM militias

This article was written by Harry Owens after the recent meeting organised by him in Dublin.

ALL ITEMS IN BRACKETS ARE FROM INTERVIEWS WITH MYSELF OR RECENT CONTACTS AND FRIENDS.

The basic material is taken from a Catalan publication: Les Milices Catalanes al Front d'Arago by J. Camp and E. Olcina, published by Laertes ed, 2006.

On behalf of everyone with an interest in the Spanish Civil War, I'd like to thank Harry for bringing Roma over to Dublin from Spain for that very interesting and well attended meeting in the Teachers Club. Harry is a resercher into the Spanish Civil War, and must be thanks for putting aside a lot of time to write up this article for this site.

Harry, thanks again. Anyone with comments or additional information should feel free to send them into the site.

Ciaran Crossey, August 19th 2009. irelandscw@yahoo.co.uk

Roma Marquez Santo, veteran of the POUM militia and later of Anarchist units, selected for officer training in the Popular Army of the Spanish Republic, was jailed after the war, is now aged 92 and living in a Barcelona suburb.

This photo was taken by Franc during the trip to Dublin, many thanks

Roma's grandparents were from Andalucia on one side, and from the Valencia region on the other. His father had little education, did service in the 1898 war in Cuba and was wounded there. He set himself up making ink pads and rubber stamps till ink supplies from Germany were cut off in the First World War.

His father, a religious man, detested the ruling monarchy, and its executions of the first republican leaders Galan and Hernandez by the king's dictatorship of generals, and the brutal regional governor Martinez Anido. Roma made his first communion but wasn't religious himself. He was one of six children, five survived childhood, with one older brother, two younger ones and his sister.

When the Republic was declared (1931) his father was ill and Roma heard the famous speech by the Catalan leader Macia, and rushed home to tell his Dad, who knew Macia. "About time!" declared his father.

Roma speaking at the Dublin meeting	Roma, with Liverpool veteran Jack Edwards, and IBMT members Richard Baxell and Manus O Riordan
Harry Owens speaking at the Teachers' Club meeting	Another image of Roma

Roma left school at 14and worked as messenger boy for a shop selling soaps and oils, he earned 12 pesetas a week which he gave to his parents. He then got work in a litho printworks till he was 18, when he got work as a mechanic in the Renault works, still for just 12 pesetas weekly.

There were always magazines and newspapers at home, he and his brothers read anything they could get their hands on, esp. the classic Russian novels, as his older brother Tete was leftwing, and the others were influenced by him. Tete was artistic, and freedom was important to him.When he did his conscription, he was influenced by a comrade in the Bloc Obrero y Campesino, and came home a marxist, and joined the "Bloc".

On the night the Civil War began with the generals' revolt in July 1936, they'd been awaiting events in the nearby CNT anarchist office, where the union had some weapons: old shotguns, revolvers, carbines etc. When nothing had happened by 1am in Barcelona, he and Tete went home.

The fighting began in the streets at dawn next day. Roma and another brother went out bringing in wounded, sending them by truck to hospital. He came home covered in blood. Many civilians had been wounded.

Word came that, if one had a union membership card, you could get a gun down at the regional government offices, or at a barracks or a police station. Roma was in the socialist UGT union, so he went to the army barracks of St Augustin and got a 1925 model Mauser rifle and 50 bullets, then went home and let Tete take the card down and get another gun. They'd had one old rifle at home, which was found dumped in a lake after an earlier failed rising, a single shot Remington, like the one his father had used in Cuba in 1898.

There were barricades to be built, street fighting developed and lasted 48 hours before the army rebels were beaten in the city. On 20th, the second day of fighting, Roma was on a barricade in plaza Sant Jaume with local city police, who also armed volunteers.

The new force, the Republic's Assault Guards, were great, they were well-trained and disciplined, led by among others, a friend of Roma's father, Joan Ricart. A first aid post was set up in an old political party cafe, which also provided wine and some food. They also got weapons training there from a veteran of the border guards.

On 22nd July Tete came home with the news that down in the city centre, he'd heard they were recruiting for columns to go to the front, against areas where the rightwing had taken over. So in the morning, they crawled down there in the gutters as bullets flew by at odd moments, having read of the technique of doing this on your stomach, using your elbows to crawl onwards, in the famous novel from the First War "All Quiet on the Western Front".

They got to the Palace theatre in the avenida, the POUM office, which was full of flags and people in blue overalls, which was becoming the uniform of the militas.

The brothers had their weapons, and enrolled. They were told to come back tomorrow when a train would be leaving, but when they came next day, were told things were delayed, "Come back - manana".The atmosphere was incredible, something completely new to the brothers: cheering, banners waving, enthusiasm. This, Tete told them, was the revolution!

On 24th they were told where the train was leaving from, and went home to say farewell. At the door their mother gave them the sendoff: "Your duty is to take care of yourselves, but do your duty, above all I never want it said that a son of mine turned his back to the enemy." His little brother Raul, aged 14, had to stay unwillingly at home.

He later got into another unit, the Carl Marx column, being tall and telling them he was 16. He went to the Madrid front, and was there in the great Madrid siege that November, and at part of the Jarama battle the following spring.

At the train, they were 1,600 strong, the Lenin column, Arquer and Grossi were the organisers, it was led by an ex-NCO, the schoolteacher Pique, in units of 100 men. Each ten had an NCO, though not everyone was armed as yet. They were given sandwiches and wine before leaving the station. Volunteers were from every background, men and women.

At first the previous employers had to pay their workers in the militias, but from August this was paid by the government at 10 pesetas a day. There were problems for his family getting paid at times, and his sister and mother went to work helping in a hospital, where nurses were understaffed as the nuns had all gone, and where they got the same 10 pesetas daily. Eventually pay was issued from the Hotel Colon for the militia volunteers.

The train was welcomed in one village, and reached Lleida (Lerida) where they were all lodged in what had been a convent, and given ammunion, in 5 cartridge sets. Trucks came with dynamite and Lafitte grenades, which frightened off one volunteer.

They went on to Barbastro where they got two machineguns, Hotchkiss types, with 30 bullet drums, and continued to Sarinena by night where they stayed 3-4 days. The famous anarchist Durutti came, armed, and gave them a rousing speech, and told how far the advance had reached, and where they were going to be attacking.

Lecinena was their first battle, Roma and 29 others including a girl Remedios were in the leading unit, they reached a slope before the town, when the enemy took over the town itself. With another 30, they were 60 strong and advanced guerrilla-style against the Civil Guards and drove them out of the town, and the rest of their column came up.

There were frequent counter-attacks from the enemy, now based in nearby Perdiguera, a town on the road to Zaragossa, his column attacked a hill in the fields of wheat near but failed to capture the town itself. Further on, in Alcala del Obispo volunteers to go for mortars were called for, and he and his two brothers accepted.

An officer got them four 50 mm mortars, and instructed them in their use, and they became the Mortar Unit, led by a POUM member,in a five man team. They fought a battle between Osca and MonteAragon, a tough fight with 100 killed, in September. At times they ran out of ammunition, till they got a cartload up from the stores in Tierz, and four or five 70 mm cannons arrived, and Tete volunteered as an artilleryman.

Roma was wounded in the leg in MonteAragon, they'd no ambulances, just small trucks, and he was sent back by train to Lleida, then Barcelona, where he met Remedios, the girl from their column, who had also been wounded. His wound wasn't serious but became infected, so he had to be operated on again, very painful.

The papers reported on 24th that they'd taken MonteAragon. When Roma left hospital he found Durutti's funeral was taking place, and went back to the front,it was nearly Christmas. his unit had bigger mortars, 81 millimeters, and they were ten men to a gun, with five mortars, still commanded by Plan, as before. The forces were being set into regular army structures, his became the 29th Division, though at the time he wasn't in favour of being militarised, it didn't seem necessary.

After the events of May, when the Central Government took over Barcelona and had the POUM abolished in street fighting, the 29th Division were accused of all sorts of faults, of being fascists, "Stalin was ultimately to blame." Orwell explains this well in his book. Every one had to get out, on his own". Tete left for officer training, and became part of the anti-aircraft defences at Montjuich, then became commander of an artillery unit and a colonel, and was in the battle of the Ebro. Roma and his brother Sergi joined the Anarchist 28th division, bringing over their mortar unit and weapons. When they were in reserve, near Zuera, their old divison had recommended them for officer training school. (At one point they had been tipped off that they were both were on a blacklist, and in danger).

Roma and Sergi fought with the 28th anarchist division and Sergi was wounded, but survived unlike may whom ambulance staff failed to locate. After the enemy fled, they were in reserve and the brothers were put into a temporary war academy, and trained as officers. Their promotions were published in the government gazette, and Sergi was posted to the Valencia region, and Roma to the far south (both being sent far from their old haunts of their POUM days). Roma later reckoned his posting to the Estremeduar front kept him out of the terrible battles of the Ebro and Catalan defeats, and perhaps saved his life .

Roma found himself posted in the villages of the Alpujarra of Granada province, and while his comrades were good, they weren't experienced in battle. Roma had trusted his comrades in the anarchist forces, but didn't have any great confidence in these comrades.

War's end found him at Calatrava, a runner came with the news, and he began to weep and couldn't stop, not for himself, but all who had died and what was now gone. They went to Martos and disarmed, and were jailed there, they had no food for ten days. (One thing that later stood to their benefit was that one of their previous prisoners, a Franco officer, was put in charge and returned the favour of their good treatment which he had received.)

They were sent to another jail, and hoped to be fed at least, but were merely sent back again, then to Jaen, the provincial jail where at last they got rice and lentils. (Roma added verbally that for two nights while they were kept outside that jail after arriving, they heard terrible sounds from inside the prison, and were told on the following days that, of the 401 inmates held there, all but one had been killed during those two nights.)

They were kept outside the jail, in the open courtyard, under endless rain, full of lice, for a week. Some fascists came one day demanding republican officers be handed over. Taken to a convent, they found conditions a bit better, a captain came as camp commander and organised things properly, and in July 1940 Roma was sent for court martial. The prosecutor demanded 20 years, for this dangerous marxist and follower of Catalan president Companys. As if he could have been both a communist and member of the moderate nationalist party of Companys. In the end he got 12 years and a day.

Then began his rounds of the jails of Spain, to Madrid after Jaen, in 1941, sleeping on two planks in Yeserias, getting tired of the fascist anthem theyhad to sing, the Cara al Sol, then to Astorga, with a loaf of bread and 4 kilos of fish for 57 men, and soup. Among the 6,000 there, there were daily deaths. Later potatoes were brought and things improved a bit.

They were sent to repair war-damaged areas but Roma would not volunteer for this, though it meant reduced jail terms, but in the end he had to.

He was sent to Teruel, and in total served 3 years, seven months and 14 days, when all the various reductions in jail sentences were carried out, to reduce the burden of prisoners and supply labour for the economy.

At home he found his mother much the worse, old and toothless, Tete had gone to France during the retreat from Catalunya and stayed there, he fought in WW2, while Sergi was working as a labourer, and wee Raul doing his conscription, Ivan at school and sisters at work.

Roma began again, also as a labourer, for 80 pesetas a week, he made contact with a POUM organiser, but one of his cell reported them to the police and as a released prisoner, Roma had to report to the local police every two weeks,so this wasn't too good, he could get ten years. But he kept on attending the meetings, and had a copier for distributing propaganda sheets. He changed his job, going to one where staff were entirely CNT, they made him their shop floor rep, he collected their dues. One day his POUM contact turned up, ordering them to produce some POUM propaganda, and Roma to join the socialist UGT union, but Roma told him he was staying in the CNT with his mates in the new job, the organiser spoke of Party Discipline, and Roma answered that discipline was a matter for each individual to decide, and broke with the POUM.

(Times for everyone in Spain were harder after the war than they had been during it, and when he asked for his food ration card, he was refused because of his republican record.

The family had a cousin in the States who sent them $50 a month, which kept them from starving and having to try their luck on the notorious Black Market of those years. He was likewise refused when he applied for a passport years later, in the early 1950s.

Another incident he thought significant was when, in the early 1960s, a pretty girl from Andalucia who worked in a bar he frequented was arguing there one day with a visitor.

When the stranger had left, they finally learnt why she'd left home alone and come to this distant city: her father had got an offer from the local landowner for a very good stallion, whereby the labourer's daughter was to "Come up to my house for domestic chores" and to her horror, her Dad had accepted, though he understood quite clearly what was involved. She left home that night, and now one of the family had traced her to her job -"And actually wanted to persuade me to go back to the village!"

Roma was always wary of any man who had served in the Spanish Foreign Legion, he feels that the sheer brutality of that life, and its cult of death, leave permanent damage on everyone involved. A very good looking girl he knew got engaged to an ex-legionnaire, and despite warnings from Roma among others, she went ahead and married him. At first all went fine, but then things got difficult till one day they came by as she stormed out her door shouting "He wants me to prostitute myself, for his benefit - well if I ever did such a thing, it'd be for my own benefit!" )

He was born in 1916, (and remembers how his mother described the Lord Mayor of Cork dying on hunger strike during the Irish War of Independence – the Catalans had a mini national strike in solidarity with the Irish struggle. He became foreman on building sites, worked in England where he learnt his English, and while he is now living in a home that looks like it might have back in 1936, he is happy with his standard of living as he gets an ex-republican officer's pension now.)

(He has started recently going to commemorations for the Republic, and has been to the UK three times at least. His politics are that he doesn't like having anyone over him at work, he feels we should all work for ourselves. He says Spain won't be truly democratic for generations to come: "It's only had 35 years of democracy in the last two centuries.")

To date, we only have contact with friends who have first met him within the past year or so, and he hasn't spoken of his private family life or any spouse or children.