Julio Tomás Codina 1913 - 1941

Born 5.3.1913 in Pobla Llarga (la)
Died 28.11.1941 in Gusen

Biography

Julio Tomás Codina was born at 3pm on Wednesday 5 March 1913 at his family home (now 29 Sant Josep Street in La Pobla Llarga, Valencia, Spain). He was the third son of the marriage between José Tomás Grau (1875–1958) and Águeda Codina Vallés (1878–1942).

In the year 1919 working conditions were so bad for peasants in La Pobla Llarga that Julio's elder brother José and his uncle took part in a movement demanding better working conditions. Six people died and several more were wounded. Even Julio's brother José was injured. At that time Julio was only a six-year-old boy and we will never know to what extent this experience affected him.

Julio was 1.67 metres tall and his chest measurement was 88 centimetres. He had brown hair, blue eyes, a snub nose, a big mouth and a fair beard. He also had a narrow forehead with a scar and a military bearing. In 1935 he joined the 3rd Coast Artillery Regiment in Cartagena to perform his compulsory military service. As soon as the Spanish Civil War started he was sent, as a Republican soldier, to DECA (a special anti-aircraft defence unit) in Barcelona. On 4 November 1937 he married María Albuixech Such (1916­–2001) at seven o'clock in the evening. They had a daughter named María Tomás Albuixech (1939–1975).

In February 1939 Julio moved to France. On Friday 18 August 1939 he was interned in the camp at Barcarés, and two months later in the camp at St Cyprien. Between Christmas and New Year, he wrote a letter to his wife in which he told her he was in the 103rd Foreign Workers Company ‘far away from Paris’. He was taken prisoner by German troops and imprisoned in Stalag XII-D, then in Stalag XIII-A in Nuremberg and in Stalag VII-A in Moosburg under prisoner number 40560. From the Moosburg camp he was sent to Mauthausen concentration camp, where he arrived on 6 August and was assigned prisoner number 3223. On Monday 17 February 1941 he was transferred to the Gusen camp and re-registered under number 10855. Julio died on Friday 28 November 1941 at 5.30am and was cremated at the Gusen crematorium on Monday 1 December 1941.

 

Ximo Vidal Martínez

 

Translation into English: Joanna White

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