Just after Hitler’s armies had defeated France, Franco's Government took advantage of the victory of its Nazi allies and began to act against the Republican exiles in French territory. On the one hand, it tried to destroy all the organizations that the refugees were maintaining in exile and to expropriate their properties and documentation; on the other hand, with the collaboration of Germany, it tried to get various Republican personalities who were in the "German-Occupied Zone" arrested and transferred to Spain, while getting others who were in the Vichy "Free Zone" arrested and extradited [...]
We believe that the Republican refugees residing in the occupied zone of France stopped being handed over because the Vichy Government protested before the Franco-German Armistice Commission in Wiesbaden, since they were not foreseen in the clauses of the Armistice. This, in any case, corresponded to the French authorities, upon the demand of extradition by the Spanish Government.
Precisely on the 23rd of August 1940, a few days after President Companys was arrested in the occupied zone, a very important agreement which would regulate the situation of Republican refugees in France was being signed between the diplomatic representation of Mexico in France and the Vichy Government. In the this agreement, the Vichy Government was obliged to guarantee the presence and freedom of Republican refugees in French territory, and especially to limit the extraditions requested by Franco’s Government to crimes and offences under ordinary law unrelated to acts of a political nature. In this way, the French Government was obliged to not allow the handing over of any Spanish refugee anywhere in French territory without first being submitted to the processes of extradition. Therefore, it was clear that the direct handing over of the refugees made by the Germans to the Spanish authorities was illegal and had to stop.
Concerning the more than 100,000 refugees who were in France, the Mexican Government finally agreed to transfer to Mexico those who requested it, and pledged to provide them with free means of transport. Also, while they could not board, it undertook to help them economically, thus replacing the tasks that until then had been carried out by Republican organizations, the JARE [Spanish Republicans Aid Board] and the SERE [Spanish Refugee Evacuation Service] which, since the occupation of Paris by the German troops, had been closed down and their premises, property and archives seized by the Spanish police attached to Franco's Embassy.
Meanwhile, the execution in Barcelona of Mr. Companys, the President of Catalonia, on the 15th of October 1940 sparked off a strong international campaign. In Mexico a Committee to help the jeopardised Spanish Republicans was formed to promote actions throughout the Americas. The Governments of several American countries expressed their concern to the Government of Vichy of the danger of other Republican refugees being handed over to Franco’s Government. All these events contributed to the fact that the handing over of new refugees by the Germans stopped and that the Government of Marshal Pétain did not grant any further extraditions of Republican personalities in exile requested by the Government of Madrid. The continued refusal by the Government of Vichy to concede to the demands of extradition by the Government of Madrid caused the number that it presented to be reduced daily.
The texts above are taken from the chapter that Josep Benet (1920-2008) dedicated to the persecution of the Republican refugees in France by Franco’s regime in his book Exili i mort del president Companys (Exile and Death of President Companys), published in 1990.
Oriol López
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