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The Death Of The War Ended

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April 1st, 1939, the day the war ended. Across Spain, Nationalists rejoiced over their victory, but with every victory there must also come a defeat, and the Republicans were scared as to what theirs meant. For months now, people had been desperately fleeing the Francoists. Their journey was filled with suffering, scores of people died from starvation or exposure to the cold, and their arrival was no better, with the French government refusing to offer aid and herding the refugees into transit camps and holding pens on the beach. They were rightfully afraid; dark days were coming for anyone with any connection to the left, but no one knew that at the time. As three of the most influential women in the anarchist movement planned their …show more content…

They would come together after Mercedes was invited to come speak to a group of workers who didn’t take her seriously and ignored her. This incident was the catalyst Mercedes and Lucia needed to act. With the later addition of Amparo, the group founded, not only an organization, but also a journal, worked to help the women of Spain become educated, provided child care for when the women were in school or needed help, and pushed for better sexual education and birth control. Their journal, named Mujeres Libres after the group, was first conceived in response to Mariano Vazquez, the secretary of the CNT. Vazquez had become involved in a literary argument of sorts with Lucia. As their back-and-forth of articles drew to a close, he proposed that the journal he worked with, the Solidaridad Obera, dedicate a page a week entirely to women. Lucia was not flattered, however, and told him, “I am not taking up your suggestion about a women’s page in Solidaridad Obera, however interesting it might be, because I have larger ambitions. I have a plan to create an independent journal that would be directed exclusively to the ends you have proposed”. The idea was met with great public support and the first edition was first published on May 20th, 1936. It was wildly successful and sold out in minutes. Over the entirety of the journal’s run fourteen

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