NCJ Number
176693
Date Published
1998
Length
269 pages
Annotation
This book presents testimonies of women incarcerated following the Spanish Civil War, 1939-1975.
Abstract
The author spent many years in prisons throughout Spain as a political prisoner. After the death of Franco in 1975, she began to collect and record oral testimonies from women she had known in prison. The October Revolution of 1934 was a prelude to the outbreak of hostilities in 1936 and the beginning of the author's career as political dissident. She and the other women whose stories are included in the book interpreted the larger context of the Civil War, the dictatorship and World War II according to their necessarily limited experience. Their understanding of the politics that informed the life-and-death struggle in which they found themselves was limited. Their activities within the Spanish Communist Party were likewise limited because of the party's general disparagement of women. Women were not sufficiently educated in party philosophy to assume leadership responsibility, but the same men who criticized women for lack of education were reluctant to facilitate the education that would qualify them for positions of leadership. Figures, glossary, notes