Speaking in Oran, Dolores Delgado calls the exile "an indelible mark in our history"

It is a "little known" and "very dramatic" exile, recalled the Minister, both because of the conditions under which the refugees left and arrived in Africa and their harsh reception by the French authorities.

During an event held at the Chamber of Commerce in Oran, at which the Director of the Instituto Cervantes, Luis García Montero, and the Director-General for Historical Memory, Fernando Martínez, also took part, the Minister stressed that the Government's homage to Spanish republican exile on its 80th anniversary "repays a debt that was pending by the State because a democratic society cannot allow itself to continue to look the other way and silence a trauma that split our country in two."

Delgado referred to the exile as an "indelible mark on our history", and during her speech called on the need to remember the hundreds of thousands of people who in the course of the Civil War and the Dictatorship "paid with their freedom and lives to defend democracy." "Wars do not end until all the wounds are healed," she said. "Commemorating the exile of yesterday means combating the totalitarianism of today," she added.

Homage to the Stanbrook

Ministerio de JusticiaAt this first event of her working trip to Algeria, Delgado also attended a round table recalling the exploits of the Stanbrook, the English ship that on 28 March 1939, three days before the end of the Civil War, left the port of Alicante bound for Oran with 2,638 people on board, forced to abandon Spain under siege by Franco's troops.

During the discussion, Saliha Zerrouki, a Professor at Tlemcen University, recalled the heroic actions of its captain, Archibald Dickson. He disobeyed the orders of the shipowner and left behind the freight he had to transport in order to do his duty and help the thousands of republicans who crowded the port, becoming their last hope. Many, however, were left on land to wait for other ships that never arrived.

The researcher and writer on the Spanish exile in Algeria, Elaine Ortega, highlighted the terrible conditions under which the Spanish refugees, including her own grandfather, were held by the French colonial authorities. A large number of the republican exiles were held in concentration and labour camps and subjected to forced labour.

In the afternoon, as a tribute to the passengers of the Stanbrook, the Minister for Justice, together with the director-general for Historical Memory and the director of the Instituto Cervantes made a floral offering at the monolith erected in their memory on the seafront of the Algerian city.

Naming of the Francesc Boix Library

Ministerio de JusticiaAt the conclusion of her stay in Oran, the Minister attended the naming ceremony by which the Instituto Cervantes library in Oran became the Biblioteca Francesc Boix, at the proposal of the Cultural Committee of the Lower House of Parliament.

It was a tribute to the Catalan photographer who recorded the Spanish Civil War and was a key witness of the horror in the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp. During his internment, he was able to hide over 20,000 photographic negatives that showed the crude reality of the camp and the extermination of prisoners. Once he was freed, his testimony was decisive in the trials of various SS guards.

The Minister recalled that thanks to his heroic deed, humanity is aware of some of the most horrendous crimes ever committed, helping to combat the Nazi horror.

She also addressed the Spanish students present at the event, mostly young people: "Francesc Boix should be an example for young people in their fight against populism and totalitarianism and to ensure that these crimes, which we are aware of thanks to this Catalan photographer, are never repeated again.

Non official translation