Neus Català is dead, the prey that has won Adolf Hitler – 14/04/2019

The memory of Neus Català, who died at 103, is unfortunately more necessary than ever. Survivor of the Nazi horror, The flame of this anti-fascist fighter was extinguished this Saturday forever in the geriatrics of Guiamets, town of the district of El Priorat in Tarragona, where he was born in 1915. His farewells are produced when the echoes still sound the derision that some brainless people have made of Anne Frank's image in a football stadium.

There are things you can not joke about, says Neus Català. Those who want to approach their legacy have at their disposal books such as "Testimoni of a Survivor", co-edited by the Generalitat, or "Ashes in the Sky: A History of Solidarity, Courage" and Survival ", by Carme Martín, who wrote the memoirs of this unbreakable figure. Without taking an ounce of merit from the author, the reader will agree that There must be very few lives more fictitious and epic than this one.

Peasant girl, linked from an early age to the unified socialist youth of Catalonia, he had to flee to France like so many other Republicans in 1939. She did not do it alone, but with 180 orphans in her care in a colony house, Las Acacias, of Premià de Dalt. This detail reflects the generosity that marked his whole existence. On the other side of the border, he met his future partner, Albert Roger, with whom he could coexist very little. Both joined the maquis (a group that was part of the French Resistance) and were arrested by the Gestapo.

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She ended, among other Nazi camps, in the Ravensbrück; him, in Bergen-Belsen. In 1945, both men were released in critical condition.: Neus Català was able to recover; Roger No: He was one of the thousands and thousands of prisoners who died a few days after the Allies had discovered the horror of the death factories.

In Ravensbrück, Neus coincided with Mercè Núñez Targa (1911-1986), who also left a touching testimony on Ravensbrück, The carrie dels gossos. Maybe this work does not have the literary strength of If it's a manby the Italian Primo Levi (1919-1987). Or one of the titles of the Hungarian Imre Kertész (1929-2016) or the Spanish Jorge Semprún (1923-2011), among other survivors of barbarism, but thanks to women like her or in Neus Català itself, we know that There are human beings who never give up their ideals.

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Treated like a slave laborNeus was the dam of 27,534 at Ravensbrück and 50,446 at Holleischen. Obliged to work in the Nazi war industry, formed a clandestine command that boycotted the manufacture of weapons. Every bomb that did not explode, every ball that was blocked was a victory. They all knew that they were risking their lives. If they found them, they would have killed them on the spot or something worse. Despite this, they never yielded to their efforts and became a nightmare for the Wehrmacht (United Armed Forces of Nazi Germany) at the very moment when the need for reinforcements was most glaring.

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President of the Ravensbrück Amicale, she has received numerous awards and honors throughout her life. Creu de Sant Jordi, gold medal of the Barcelona City Council and the Generalitat, The tributes that she most loved are the silence and attention with which the students listened when she went to explain her story. in one of the many schools that he visited. Once, she explained that when she left one of these conferences, a girl called her "The woman who defeated Hitler".

By Domingo Marchena – The Vanguardia.

GML