English
Castellano
Français‘Fernando lives in Andaya, Valencia and was born in Linares, Chile in 1957. He has lived as a privileged witness of the most intense moments of our contemporary history in Chile and Spain’. He writes: ‘In Chile I was “el gringito” and here in Spain, I am for my friends “the Chilean”. I feel that both here and there they call me these names with all their affection, they know that I am the fruit of one of those thousands of Spaniards who suffered exile to escape the dictatorship of Franco and then of Pinochet. Those who made the world their homeland and that they went from here to there looking for a corner where to save their life, away from so much scoundrel with immense power. We are the children of the Winnipeg: The boat of hope, that took more than two thousand refugees to Chile … Never forget where your roots are. I was born in Linares and there lived seventeen years …. We travel to Spain with the consideration of repatriates. … It was a trip full of emotional contradictions. I left behind my best friends…They were moments of great anxiety. We ignored how destiny would treat us and we did not even have the security that we could leave the country (Chile). Finally at 11 o’clock in the morning of September the 3rd we left. I never imagined that I would experience in my own flesh a similar experience to the one that brought my father to Chile. In the same way as 35 years before, my father embarked in the port of Valparaíso to repeat the same journey, but in reverse. The coincidence could not be more macabre: the same repression, the same defeat, the same pier, the same month and the same day, September 4th. From the other side of the planet, from the other hemisphere of history. Life is like a mirror; it smiles at you if you look at her smiling’. Excerpt from the memories of Fernando Llagaria Vazquez, son of José Llagaria Jiménez, written in the magazine Copihue Rojo from the Chilean house in Valencia (Spain).
Month: July 2018
Miguel and José Ballester Soriano. A mother who never again was able to hug and kiss his children.
Miguel and José Ballester Soriano married two sisters Juana Hilda Laferte Chávez and Luz Marina Lafertt Chávez (a typographical error in the first surname that passed to the children). My aunt Marina and her eldest daughter came to Spain at the beginning of the 60s, to meet my uncles’ parents and the rest of the family. They were 5 brothers, 2 died, two were exiled and these two brothers, when their parents died, inivited the other brother to go to Chile and see each other. On the trip he met Nino Bravo, I think that when he came to Chile, he talked more about it than about his brothers and nephews.
Three years ago I found out that they traveled in the Winnipeg (I got in touch with Jaime Cardona Jasenwirth and he gave me a lot of information about my uncles, today Ana Calero San Martín has contacted me, both descendants of the Winnipeg passengers), in addition I had hearded the name of Pablo Neruda in my house. Miguel and José Ballester Soriano were my mother’s first cousins and the relationship with their parents was always very close. Their mother and my grandmother were sisters but even though they had two more brothers, my great aunt always leaned on my grandmother, she would bring up the letters the family sent so that my sister could read them to her and answer them.
They sent pictures every year, I do not remember them because I was very young, and apparently my mother and her brother also sent photos of us, because when my uncle José came to Chile, out of all the cousins, he could only recognized my mother and his brother. My uncle José and his wife lived two years here in Chile and with the Pinochet’s dictatorship, he had to leave Chile to East Germany, however, his children, brothers and nephews stayed. A friend got them a job in Venezuela and they travelled there. He said: “there we are at least halfway”. In 1984 my uncle Miguel died, uncle José wrote to let us know. What I don’t remember is if he had already returned to Chile. In 1997 my uncle José died. The communication with our part of the family was cut off, but I know they keep in touch with their cousins . Now that I have been able to see the photos of my uncle José when he was doing all the paperwork to stay in Chile, I have understood why my mother’s brother recognized him when he saw him pass in the car that brought him to the village, he looks a lot like his brother Rafael who died here.
My great aunt used to say: of 5 children, 4 have died, to which my grandmother replied: “Elvira do not say that, they and you have a family on the other side of the world.” YES BUT I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO HUG THEM AGAIN. This is just what I remember or what I heard my mother saying, I’m not sure, about when my uncle lived in Spain in the 70s, I miss them.
A labor of Love by Neruda
I put them in my boat.
It was daylight and France
her fancy dress
of every day she had at that time,
it was
the same clarity of wine and air
her clothes of forest goddess.
My ship expected
with its remote name “Winnipeg”
But my Spanish were not coming
from Versailles,
from the silvery dance,
from the old amaranth carpets,
from the cups chirping
with wine,
no, they were not coming from there,
no, they were not coming from there,
From further away,
from prison camps,
from the black sand
from the Sahara,
from rough hiding places
where they lay
hungry and naked,
there to my clear boat,
to the ship at sea, to hope
they arrived called one by one
by me, from their prisons,
from the fortress
from the shaky France
called by my mouth
arrived,
Saavedra, I said, and came the mason,
Zuniga, I said, and there he was,
Roces, I called, and arrived with grim smile,
I shouted, Alberti! and with hands of quartz
the poetry arrived.
Laborers, carpenters,
fishermen,
turners, machinists,
potters, tanners:
the boat was becoming populated
parting to my homeland.
I felt in my fingers
the seeds
from Spain
that I rescued myself and scattered
over the sea, directed
to the peace
of the prairies.
(Neruda)
