Jesús Álamo

 My name is Jesús Álamo. I am almost 70 years old, and my interest in the Civil War comes more from my interest in history and my political affiliation than to what my father, Manuel Álamo Vicente, told me about it.

His memory has led me to share this documentation, which I hope will contribute to spreading knowledge of our history, which is the goal of this museum, and to honouring those who suffered such a cruel was as ours. I congratulate its creators for their initiative.

Manuel Álamo Vicente was born on 7 June 1913 in Santisteban del Puerto, an agricultural village in the province of Jaén. When he was a child, the family moved to Úbeda, an important town in the same province. That was where he married and had five children. He and his family emigrated to Madrid in 1957. He died there, in his own bed, on 12 June 2004.

My father never talked much about the war. Although he never joined a political party, he always considered himself a socialist.

He did his military service in Valencia (1934/1935) and in 1936 he was drafted and sent to the front to defend the Republic. In 1937 he was promoted to corporal, and as his Popular Army identity card – shown here – indicates he fought on the Madrid front. The text addressed to the soldiers in the identity card shows the idealism of the time.

He fought at the lake in the Casa de Campo and around the Bridge of the French, which was very near that emblem of the defence of Madrid, the University City. This story is told in the lyrics of the spontaneously created song. There is no recording of it, but my father sang it to me when he was around 85.

“One dark and fearful night, the unit of fusiliers, burdened with guns and belts 

Set out in trucks for the Florida bridge.

They reached Casa Mingo [a restaurant that still exists] where the Batallion was

And within minutes fighting broke out

The night was very dark and hand grenades lit us up

And the first batallion attacks proudly singing their beautiful song:

     You Germans are rougher than you are big,
     And by joining up with the Italians you share their troubles,
     Because the loyal Reds are wrecking Franco’s plans,
    And for that gypsy Queipo and that suckling brat Franco,
    The medics of this battalion will perform their autopsy.”

During all this he was wounded in the right elbow by shrapnel from a mortar and and the arm was declared useless. Because of this, in time he was awarded a small pension which he received until his death in 2004.

In August that year he married my mother in a civil ceremony. But when their first daughter was born after the war, they had to have another wedding ceremony, this time a religious one, so that their daughter would be recognized as legitimate. That’s how the new regime was.

Curiously, the photographs are all on the cardboard used for postcards, which suggests that soldiers had them made to send to their girlfriends. The uniform in the one in which he is alone suggests it was taken in 1934 or 1935, during his military service. On the back of the one in which he poses casually with a soldier to his left, (1937/1938) he wrote “to be delivered to Blasa”, my mother. In the studio portrait of three soldiers, Manuel is the one on the left.