He is 103 years old!
There are already many.
What is your secret?
The olive oil.
Yeah?
I have always had with me a bottle of oil from my olives.
Do you have olive trees?
In my hometown, Els Torms, like my parents, my grandparents…
What variety are they?
Arbequina I founded the Cooperativa dels Torms in my town…
Did you get into politics?
No. Solo fled paid.
How did you experience the war?
Like thousands of 18-year-old Catalan boys: I had the fifth of the bottle.
My paternal uncle Josep Amela was also affected, what a disgrace.
Died?
No, because a bullet wounded him in the town of Massaluca and he was evacuated.
I was also in the battle of the Ebro.
And on the Segre front, before, how was my uncle?
Not me, because I ran away and hid.
That carried the death penalty!
But I didn’t want to shoot. I refused to kill anyone. I didn’t want to go to war.
Presence of crimes in Els Torms?
CNT-FAI patrols in 1936 burned the church and made a bonfire with carvings of saints and mass books…
When were you called up?
It was in March 1938, when I was 18 years old. I showed up in Mollerussa and they cut us: I was 1.60 meters tall.
Didn’t get rid?
No one was spared! They needed all of us. On the 30th, at dawn, they give us a joke and tell us that at ten in the morning we are leaving for Cervera…
Go? Towards the front of the Segre…
After twenty minutes of walking, my friend Eladi and I escaped: we returned to the town at night, so as not to be seen.
Well thought.
We hid, from April to August, in a country house, in the middle of the field.
Without major shocks?
We were afraid of being seen and denounced by a neighbor, but luckily it didn’t happen. We ate what a relative brought us.
When did they leave the booth?
A government order exempted all ambushers from penalty if they showed up before September 15.
Of course, the bosses needed more cannon fodder on the Ebro front.
Eladi and I presented ourselves to the authorities. They took us to Montblanc, we did target practice: there were five bullets per soldier. That’s where I fired my first shot.
And then… in front of the Ebro?
Yes, by truck, over a bridge over the river. We arrived at a trench at night. It was October 6, the International Brigades had just been repatriated. With another boy we did the first watch.
Did he go into combat?
Two days later a rain of projectiles rained down on us and an explosive bullet ripped my rifle off, smashed the stock. I was covered in gravel and branches because a shell exploded nearby. Another did not explode.
The thing is, he survived.
By miracle. After a whole day without eating, I went out to pick some nearby grapes. “Unfortunate!” One of our officers yelled at me: he almost shot me, he thought I was running away.
Did you have that idea?
Yes, when they put me in an advanced guard post: it was certain death!
And he deserted?
I put what I had on myself, abandoned my rifle, and with another comrade we ran towards the enemy wire fence. Nearby, we took out white handkerchiefs and yelled: “Nationals, don’t throw away, we’re going too far!”
And they didn’t shoot?
“What are you wearing?” a voice asked. “Just the blanket,” we said. “You may come in,” she commanded. They were Carlists. As my friend had been requested, they treated us well and we went to Vilalba dels Arcs and Batea.
There in the month of August there was a great massacre of requetés.
I found out later. My friend joined them. I, instead of a soldier, preferred to be a prisoner.
Where were they imprisoned?
In slave labor battalions across half of Spain, with hunger, walks, punishments, beatings… They released me in June 1940 and I returned home… I was already 20 years old.
And then what?
I worked in the fields and got married. But in 1956 even the olive trees froze. And since 1960, when I was 40 years old, I worked in the Marcel bar, Llobregós street in Barcelona.
Did it go well?
Yes, but I longed for the countryside. I retired thirty years later and we returned to town. And every day I walked to my garden, hoe on my shoulder. I don’t want many things.
