Homecoming — Consuelo

Abstract

I first went back to Spain on holiday in 1954. I had always wanted to return to live there. In Marseille after the Liberation it was in my mind all the time but my mother said, ‘You’re not going back, you’re staying with me.’ She was frightened to return to Spain because they would have killed her. Then in 1954 I went to the Spanish consulate at Lyon and was able to get a passport for myself and my three little girls. I didn’t have Spanish nationality, I was Mexican, but my identity card was marked, ‘Refugee from the Spanish War’ and with that I was able to get a pass. Some of the Spanish refugees in Riom criticised me for going back, even on holiday, but that didn’t bother me too much. One of the families who spoke out against me themselves returned to Barcelona for good in 1966.