in the summer of 1936, a young militia woman unfurled, cheerful and confident, a black and red flag of the CNT-FAI on a barricade erected on Carrer Hospital next to the Rambla, with the Casa dels Paragües in the background. The image, a symbol of the revolutionary soul and the hopes of the people in arms, became one of the most popular icons of the Spanish Civil War around the world, reproduced in postcards, magazines and even T-shirts for dogs or motorcycle helmets, despite the fact that it was not known who the author was, Antoni Campañà, until one of his grandchildren found it in 2018 in the garage of his house inside a red box that the photographer had hidden for fear of the repression of the Francoist authorities. First mystery solved. But who was the smiling, confident libertarian?
Two years ago, the French couple formed by François and Liliane Gomez saw the image displayed on the facade of the MNAC announcing the exhibition La guerra infinita. Antoni Campaña Tensions of a look. 1906-1989, they didn’t hesitate for a second. “But if it’s the beast Anita!” Anita was the family name of Ana Garbín Alonso, a free and libertarian woman who had worked as a clerk in Can Jorba and who, at the time of the photo, was 21 years old, divorced from her first husband, had a daughter, Liberty, three years old, and had a passionate relationship with a Republican army officer who had a second family in France. They lived near Paseo de Gràcia. Born in Almeria in 1915, she had arrived in Barcelona at the age of five and was the eldest of six children (four girls and one boy) of Manuel Garbín Ibáñez, a militant anarchist who had joined the CNT in 1921 and worked on the railways , and Grabriela Alonso Martínez, who ran a fruit and poultry shop at the address where they lived in Plaça de Sant Agustí Vell, in the Ribera neighborhood.
“Their commitment is totally linked to that of the parents. She grew up in an atmosphere of anarchist militancy and she maintained her ideals until the end”, remember the youngest son, Joseph Lumbreras, Pepito, and his nephew Alain Solans, who in the French exile remember her cooking paellas and listening to CDs Antonio Molina, Juanito Valderrama, Joselito, Luis Mariano, Lola Flores, El Niño de Murcia or Manolo Escobar. He never wanted to return to Barcelona. “His political commitment canceled any desire to return to a country ruled by fascists”, they point out. He died in 1977 in Besiers and, as a good believer, his grave is presided over by a cross.
In 1937, a year after Campañà portrayed her, Anita, who had already seen her second daughter, Harmonia, die, gave birth to Floréal Pérez. “I couldn’t breastfeed her and her mother, Gabriela, who had just had Amapola, took care of it”, remember the son and nephew, who say that Anita was involved in politics from the age of 18 and that the sisters Carmen and Josefa, aged 11 and 8, also participated in the defense of Barcelona, ??”hiding weapons in chairs with double bottoms and in laundry baskets they took to Figueres”.
La Floréal is the daughter of a Republican commander with whom she crossed the French border on February 10, 1939 to escape the bombs. They threw their weapons into the sea in Cervera de la Marenda and were separated in different refugee camps until the French wife of the soldier rescued them. “Anita left, then, alone with the children in Bedarius, worked as a seamstress in a military uniform factory, organized trade union meetings with the Spanish exiles and then settled in Besiers”, where she meet what would be the love of his life, José Lumbreras, communist and Pepito’s father.
“They often argued passionately and the conversations rose in tone, but they did not try to convince one another, each one convinced of his good cause and his good faith”. Of course, when she said the word religion, he answered: “Inquisition”.
The identity of the protagonist of the iconic photograph has been revealed on the occasion of the inauguration of Antoni Campañà. Icônes cachées, which opens tomorrow at the Pavillon Populaire in Montpellier and is curated by Arnau González i Vilalta, Plácid Garcia-Planas and the photographer’s grandson, Toni Monné, who opened the content to the public for the first time at the MNAC of the red boxes on life in the rear. “The great paradox of this story is that the iconic photograph of Spanish Iberian anarchism was taken by a Catholic photographer and the model was a believer”, points out Garcia-Planas, who with the other two curators is preparing a documentary about the militia woman.
