Bunuel_Luis_My_Last_Breath

the rue de la Pepiniere and was officially responsible for cataloguingthe Republican propaganda films made in Spain. In fact, however,my job was somewhat more complicated. On the one hand, I was akind of protocol officer, responsible for organizing dinners at theembassy, which meant making sure that Andre Gide was not seatednext to Louis Aragon. On the other hand, I was supposed to oversee"news and propaganda." This job required that I travel-to Switzerland,Antwerp (where the Belgian Communists gave us their totalsupport), Stockholm, LondonÑdrummin up support for variousRepublican causes. I also went to Spain from time to time, carryingsuitcases stuffed with tracts that had been printed in Paris. Thanksto the complicity of certain sailors, our tracts once traveled to Spainon a German ship.While the French government steadfastly refused to compromiseor to intervene on behalf of the Republic, a move that would certainlyhave changed the direction of things, the French people, particularlythe workers who belonged to the Confederation Generate de Travail,helped us enormously. It wasn't unusual, for instance, for a railroademployee or a taxi driver to come see me and tell me that two Fascistshad arrived the previous night on the eight-fifteen train and had goneto such-and-such a hotel. I passed all information of this kind directlyto Araquisrin, who was proving to be by far our most efficientambassador.The nonintervention of France and the other democratic powerswas fatal to the Republican cause. Although Roosevelt did declarehis support, he ceded to the pressure from his Catholic constituencyand did not intervene. Neither did Leon Blum in France. We'd neverhoped for direct participation, but we had thought that France, likeGermany and Italy, would at least authorize the transport of armsand "volunteers." In fact, the fate of Spanish refugees in France wasnothing short of disastrous. Usually, they were simply picked up atthe border and thrown directly into camps. Later, many of them fellinto the hands of the Nazis and perished in Germany, mainly inMauthausen.