Bunuel_Luis_My_Last_Breath

The Civil War (193 6-1 939) 167plane heading toward us from the direction of Majorca. We wereterrified, until it veered off suddenly and turned around, dissuadedperhaps by the DC-8 from Barcelona.During a trip to Valencia, I went to see the head of agitprop toshow him some papers that had come to us in Paris and which wethought might be useful to him. The following morning, he pickedme up and drove me to a villa a few kilometers outside the city,where he introduced me to a Russian, who examined my documentsand claimed to recognize them. Like the Falangists and the Germans,the Republicans and the Russians had dozens of contacts like thisthesecret services were doing their apprenticeships everywhere. Whena Republican brigade found itself besieged from the other side of theGavarnie, French sympathizers smuggled arms to them across themountains. In fact, throughout the war, smugglers in the Pyreneestransported both men and propaganda. In the area of St.-Jean-de-Luz, a brigadier in the French gendarmerie gave the smugglers notrouble if they were crossing the border with Republican tracts. Iwish there'd been a more official way to show my gratitude, but Idid give him a superb sword I'd bought near the place de la Republique,on which I'd had engraved: "For Services Rendered to theSpanish Republic. "Our relationship with the Fascists was exceedingly complex, asthe Garcia incident illustrates so well. Garcia was an out-and-outcrook who claimed to be a Socialist. During the early months of thewar, he set up his racket in Madrid under the sinister name of theBrigada del Amanecer-the Sunrise Brigade. Early in the morning,he'd break into the houses of the well-to-do, "take the men for awalk," rape the women, and steal whatever he and his band couldget their hands on. I was in Paris when a French union man whowas working in a hotel came to tell me that a Spaniard was gettingready to take a ship for South America and that he was carrying asuitcase full of stolen jewels. It seemed that Garcia had made hisfortune, left Spain, and was skipping the continent altogether underan assumed name.Garcia was a terrible embarrassment to the Republic, but the