Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria University College, Wellington N.Z. Vol. 21, No. 11. September 17, 1958

Escape

Escape

In these circumstances Francisco Navarro, a student of philosophy and letters, and myself, a science student, both from the University of Madrid, decided to try to cross the Pyrennees on foot to escape the net of imprisonment and military tribunals which was being prepared for us. (Under the Franco regime, anyone who protests is a criminal, and is judged not by a civil court but by a military tribunal.)

Hurriedly, and without telling anyone of our plans, we made our modest preparations. My friend had a few savings and I had the money for my lessons, and with this we bought a map and a torch. We took the train for Barcelona on Saturday, 18th January, which gave us a day and a half before our absence from the university would be noticed.

We travelled in different compartments. On arrival at Guadalajara the police examined my papers—and said nothing. On Sunday morning we arrived at Barcelona and after buying a few essentials continued towards Ripoll, a town 30 kilometres from the French frontier, in the heart of the Pyrennees. We told the railway police that we were students interested in visiting some Roman relics which can be found in the Catalonian mountains.

From Ripoll we tried to reach the French frontier across the mountains. We changed our clothes, abandoned our bag and set out for the North. At Camprodon, seven kilometre from the frontier, we were [unclear: oblige] to waste time visiting the [unclear: Romat] bridge and the Monastery of [unclear: Sar] Pedro in order to avert suspicion despite our anxiety and the necessity to get to the frontier as quickly [unclear: a] possible.

As evening fell we began the [unclear: las] stage of our flight towards [unclear: wha] would be our voluntary exile, if [unclear: w] had luck, and an aggravation of [unclear: our] situation if we failed. We had [unclear: en] visaged arriving on French soil about midnight, but the steepness of the mountain, the strong wind, low [unclear: tem] perature and falling snow made [unclear: our] progress so painful and difficult that at six in the morning we were [unclear: stil] travelling. We were on a [unclear: desolate] plateau when we saw, in the [unclear: depth] of a valley beneath us, the lights [unclear: o] houses. It took us another [unclear: four] hours to descend the steep slope [unclear: and] reach the first French village, [unclear: La] Preste.

Completely exhausted, we [unclear: callec] at the first building we reached—the village school. We explained [unclear: our] situation to the teacher, a [unclear: young] woman, and received very friendly assistance from her and from the neighbours to whose house she directed us. Afterwards we had [unclear: ample] proof of French hospitality, particularly that of the Union [unclear: Nationale] des Etudiants de France and [unclear: other] organisations which have helped [unclear: to] alleviate the difficulties of our [unclear: exile]