Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Featured Audio

Spanish Civil War: ‘I Remember Jarama’ (duration: 51′54″)

‘Man’s dearest possession is life, and since it is given to him to live but once, he must live so as to feel no torturing regrets….so he can say, - ‘All my life and all my strength were given to the finest cause in the world – the liberation of mankind’.

That quotation from the writings of Lenin encapsulated Tom Spillers beliefs. Committed to the cause of Communism and deeply involved in the New Zealand union movement for most of his life, he was no stranger to dispute and controversy. He took part in the Bastion Point controversy over maori land and figured in the waterfront dispute of 1951.

As a young man, he joined the International Brigade, to fight for the Republican cause against fascism during the civil war which erupted in Spain 70 years ago this week.

In this award-winning Spectrum documentary recorded in 1984, Tom Spiller recalls how his philosophy was moulded in the crucible of the Great Depression of the 30s. He was persecuted for his beliefs by a newly respectable Labour government elected in 1935. A year later Tom found his way to Spain, where he experienced the murderous horror of a war which turned out to be a rehearsal for the world-wide conflict soon to come.

Spanish Civil War: ‘A Nurse’s Story’ (duration: 22′47″)

‘It was a symphony of pain, - hundreds of wounded lying on the bare hospital floor moaning. We’d run out of even basic medicines, - our main treatment was amputation’.

Nurse Isobel Maguire recalling a frontline hospital near Madrid in July 1937.

Only months earlier Isobel had volunteered her services to the Spanish Medical Aid Association; helping the Spanish government and the International Brigade against general Franco was her way of fighting the spread of fascism.

The leftist forces were in need of help, many countries including Britain had taken a stance of non intervention but this only served to leave other countries such as Germany free to support Franco.

Even the international Red Cross adopted a non intervention policy which, exacerbated the shortages of medical supplies and personnel.

The stance of the Red Cross was an additional motivator for Isobel to leave her job at Auckland hospital and offer her services to the socialist cause. The New Zealand authorities confiscated the passports of Isobel and two other nurses also heading for Spain but returned them when they found no grounds to prevent them leaving the country. Had they been card-carrying communists it could have been different.

The shocking conditions they found on the front line soon worsened as Franco’s forces gained ascendancy. They evacuated the hospital and joined a flood of refugees streaming south to Barcelona. By November 1937 Isobel Maguire reached Britain. She was 22 years old.

(RNZ Spectrum 1984)