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Abilio Álvarez Bernardo 1916 - 1942 Edit

Born 25.6.1916 in Olelas (Entrimo)
Died 2.2.1942 in Hartheim

Biography

He was born on 25 June 1916 in Olelas, a small Galician village in Entrimo council in Ourense. Olelas is very close to the border which unites Galician and Portuguese people. His parents were Asunción Bernardo González (born and died in Olelas, 1890-1978) and Delfín Álvarez Domínguez (born in Ribeiro de Cima, Portugal, in 1886 and died in Olelas in 1933).

As he was born in 1916, he belonged to the 1937 call-up but, when his compulsory turn came in March 1937, Abilio had already migrated to Catalonia, to Tarragona to be exact. In 1937, his name was mentioned in a letter that belonged to the Reus PSUC (Partit Socialista Unificat de Catalunya – Catalonian Unified Socialist Party). In June 1937, after having served as a Republican militiaman, he joined the Carabineros Force, posted in the 152 mixed Carabineros Brigade (Brigada Mixta de Carabineros).

In the beginning of 1936, he was part of the dramatic mass exodus to France, fleeing Franco’s dictatorship, and forced into some of the internment camps in southern France with thousands of other Republican refugees. There he joined the 39th CTE (Compagnies de travailleurs étrangers – Company of Foreign Workers) in Moselle. In February 1940, Abilio “was working” in that CTE reinforcing the forts of the Maginot line, in particular the fortified sectors of the Sarre and Faulquemeont in the fortified region of Metz.

In June 1940, due to the French defeat, the CTEs had no supervising commandment, and Abilio tried to flee to Switzerland but he was arrested by the Wehrmacht on 20 June in the city of Delle on the swiss border.

Later he was detained in the Frontstalag in Belfort, staying there until January 1941 when in less than fifteen days, on June 27, he was deported with other 1471 Spanish Republicans to the Mauthausen concentration camp. Thus, Abilio was in two different Stalags: Kaisersteinbruch in Austria, close to Hungary and Slovakia, and later in the camp of Fallingbostel.

Abilio would survive for one year as a Rotspanier in the Mauthausen concentration camp where more than one hundred Galicians died. On 2 February 1942 his death was registered at Hartheim Castle, where he was gassed to death under the lethal 14f13 program.

Rafael, Great-nephew

Sources:

Anuncio de notificación de 6 de agosto de 2019 en procedimiento. Listado de españoles fallecidos en los campos de concentración de Mauthausen y Gusen. (Suplemento de Notificacións del BOE, Boletin oficial de l’Estado – Official State Journal, n.º 190, 9 August 2019) :

https://www.diariodesevilla.es/2019/08/09/Listado.pdf?hash=50e4ba2a6d62023451795537594bad2bf9ea9941 (Access on 14 December 2021)

Manuel Gago Mariño (Curator of the Exposition) : Galicia, un relato no mundo, Santiago de Compostela: Xunta de Galicia, 2019, p. 81. https://issuu.com/cidadedacultura/docs/grm_catalogo_web (Access on 14 December 2021)

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