Meanwhile, the mother of Neruda’s daughter was in The Hague, desperate for help only he could provide, but would deny her.
* * *
As Neruda was burying his parents, a humanitarian crisis was emerging in Europe. Just two days before Christmas 1938, Franco launched a final, decisive battle to take Barcelona and all of Catalonia, leaving the Republicans with only Madrid and its environs in the middle of the country, surrounded by the Nationalists on every side. Barcelona fell at the end of January; all of Catalonia fell shortly thereafter. As the Nationalists began to occupy Barcelona, panic swept across the region. Violence and reprisals seemed imminent.
Over a half million men, women, and children fled east into France, over the snowcapped Pyrenees, suffering pneumonia, frostbite, and hunger. French prime minister Léon Blum, intimidated by threats from the Right and having signed the nonintervention pact, did not give the refugees asylum but instead herded them into concentration camps. Many who had no family in France were sent back to Franco’s Spain. Thousands died of cold, starvation, and disease in the camps. On February 27, England and France officially recognized the Nationalist government, endangering the refugees even further.
On March 4, 1939, the Chilean painter Luis Vargas Rosas wrote Neruda an urgent letter from Paris:
There are 1,600 intellectuals in the camps; only 40 have left, most of them escapees. Their situation is anguish and there is immediate need to help them . . .
If the bureaucracy is too great for them to go officially, why not collect enough to pay the passage of these comrades. In the midst of so much disgrace, Chile represents the felicity of starting life over. I know that you will do what is in your reach for humanity, solidarity, and the friendship of those who are on this list . . .
Neruda heeded the call. Pedro Aguirre Cerda had just won the election by 1 percent of the vote, 222,720 to 218,609. Neruda went to see the new president on whose campaign he had worked so hard. Aguirre Cerda received Neruda warmly and agreed to help him in his quest to support Spanish refugees.
Meanwhile, in Madrid, the Second Spanish Republic was shattered. At this point, for the Republicans, it was less a question of survival than of how to surrender with the fewest reprisals, though Franco would accept only an unconditional surrender. After holding out for so long, Madrid finally fell on March 28, 1939; Valencia, the following day. Over the next two days, all remaining Republican forces surrendered unconditionally. On April 1, the Spanish Civil War ended as General Francisco Franco declared victory, now holding power over the entire country. There would be no efforts at reconciliation. The historic idealistic energy that had created the magnificent momentary world in which Neruda and Delia had met, in which so much humanity had flourished, had been crushed by the boots of a Fascist dictator who would rule the country until his death in 1975.
Five days after Franco’s victory, President Aguirre Cerda signed an order naming Neruda as consul, second class, to Paris—no longer an honorary consul, but a professional one with a real occupation (and a decent salary). He was being sent on “the noblest mission I have ever undertaken.”
Delia had already been working in Santiago on projects to collect clothes and goods for the refugees. Organizers held a film festival, a book fair, and a concert. With El Comité Chileno de Ayuda a los Refugiados Españoles (Chilean Committee for Aid to the Spanish Refugees), they sold copies of “An Autograph of Pablo Neruda”—such was his stature now. In it, he claimed:
America must take the hand of Spain in its misfortune. Thousands of Spaniards are crowded together in inhumane concentration camps, full of misery and anguish.
We will bring them to America.
Chile . . . opens the doors to shelter these Spanish victims of European fascism in its territory. Add your material help to this generous gesture!
Spaniards to Chile!
Neruda and Delia arrived in France at the end of April 1939 and moved into an apartment on the Left Bank. On his arrival, Neruda realized that politics would prove a barrier to his goals. “The government and political situation in my country were now different,” Neruda wrote in his memoir, referring to the new progressive president of Chile. “[But] the embassy in Paris hadn’t changed. The idea of sending Spaniards to Chile infuriated our atrophied diplomats. They installed me in an office next to the kitchen, they harassed me in every way they could, even denying me writing paper.”
When Aguirre Cerda gave the annual presidential address to the National Congress that May, his initial welcome to Spanish refugees had vanished. He was struggling to keep his coalition together, and he faced pressure from the Right, who feared being overrun by communists and anarchists if Chile’s doors were opened. All immigration would now be controlled by Santiago and limited to industrial, mining, and agricultural laborers. Soldiers, businessmen, and people in liberal arts, humanities, or science fields were denied entry.
Neruda was not deterred. The French Communist Party had been using an old Canadian cargo ship, the Winnipeg, to transport arms to the Spanish Republic. Now that the Republic had fallen, Neruda secured it to evacuate refugees through the Panama Canal and down to Valparaíso, its cargo holds converted into a cramped dormitory.
The poet was in charge of the passenger list. Refugees of every sort wrote to him, pleading for a chance to flee the Franco regime. In the beginning of June, the United Press reported that Neruda had compiled a list of some two thousand refugees ready to board for South America. This was many more than most Chileans had expected, and right-wing politicians complained vehemently.
The minister of foreign affairs, Abraham Ortega, sent Neruda an alarmed cable on June 17:
Rep. de ChileN. 2006
MRREE
Conchile Paris
N. 538 – June 17/1939
Information in the press informs that two thousand refugees
