In
1939 the Spanish Civil War had not finished yet and almost half a million
people crossed the border with France running away from the repression of
Franco. The neighbouring country housed the exiles imprisoning them as
criminals in concentration camps that lacked the minimum humanitarian
conditions, which caused an infant mortality rate of 95%. Eisabeth Eidenbenz, a 23-year old Swiss
woman of 23 years old, that was caring for those children, victims of the
war, established a maternity ward in the vicinity to aid the pregnant
mothers. With the collaboration of the mothers themselves and of voluntary
nurses she made it possible that 597 babies were born in decent conditions.
The parents of more than half of them were Spanish exiles, but other
children that were born later were of Jewish mothers escaping from the Nazi
horror.
Seventy years later, the mothers, the children and Elisabeth Eidenbenz
herself rediscover this impressive and unknown chapter of history, full of
drama, but also of hope and tenderness. |
