Chapter 10: A Terrified City Responds: The Massacres of Paracuellos
Right wing provocation
"Franco once claimed that he would never bomb Madrid, but already in September 1936, there were major raids. He ensured, however, that the Barrio de Salamanca, the wealthiest neighbourhood, would be spared. Accordingly, its streets were crowded and, at night, people who could not get into Metro stations for shelter slept on the pavements of the Barrio’s great boulevards, Salamanca, Velázquez, Goya and Príncipe de Vergara. The raids on the rest of the city, far from undermining the morale of the Madrileños, did exactly the opposite and also provoked a deep loathing of the rebels, a loathing whose immediate targets were those assumed to be their supporters within the capital. This included both as yet undetected members of the fifth column and right-wingers already in prison. In the paranoia of the siege, they were indiscriminately regarded as ‘fifth columnists’."
"Hatred was intensified when a rebel aircraft inundated the city with leaflets announcing that ten Republicans would be shot for every prisoner killed in Madrid. The acrimony was whipped up by the Republican daily La Voz, which announced that ‘it is estimated that Madrid, if it falls, will be the terrifying theatre of one hundred thousand sacrificial victims’. On the basis of what had been done in the south by the African columns, it was believed that anyone who had been a member of any party or group linked to the Popular Front, had held a government post or was an affiliate of a trade union would be shot. ‘After a final orgy of blood, when the barbaric revenge of the enemies of freedom has been consummated, with the most significant men of the bourgeois left and the proletarian left murdered, twenty-two million Spaniards would suffer the most atrocious and humiliating slavery.’1 Another Republican daily, Informaciones, reported that Queipo de Llano had told a British journalist that half of Madrid’s population would be shot by the victorious rebels.2"
"On 16 November, the diplomats still in Madrid were shown the horribly mutilated corpse of a Republican pilot. On the previous day, he had crash-landed behind the Francoist lines near Segovia. He was beaten to death and his body dragged around the streets of the town. His captors had then taken the trouble to dismember him, place his body parts in a box, attach a parachute, load the box on to an aircraft, fly to Madrid and drop it over the aerodrome at Barajas. In the box was a paper which said, ‘this gift is for the head of the red air force so that he knows the fate that awaits him and all his bolsheviks’.3"
Leftist response to right wing provocation
"In the claustrophobia generated by the siege, the daily terror had long since found expression in a popular rage which focused on the prison population"
"Neither ordinary citizens nor political leaders made any significant distinction between the active ‘fifth column’ and the nearly eight thousand imprisoned rightists. At this stage, the fifth column was far from being the organized network that it became in 1937 and the exploits of snipers, saboteurs and defeatists were relatively random. However, among those detained as rebel supporters were many, especially the army officers, who were considered potentially very dangerous."
"As Franco’s columns advanced ever nearer to the capital, to generalized hatred of rightists there was added a much more specific concern about the presence in Madrid’s prisons of so many experienced right-wing officers who had already categorically refused invitations, individual and collective, to honour their oath of loyalty to the Republic and fight in defence of the city. On a razor’s edge between survival and annihilation, the Republican military and political authorities were determined that these men should not be permitted to form the basis of new units for the rebel columns. This would be the most crucial factor in the eventual fate of prisoners throughout November 1936."
"When the question of the prisoners was raised on 1 November, Álvarez del Vayo left the meeting to go and seek advice from Largo Caballero. He returned to say that the Prime Minister had ordered the Minister of the Interior, Ángel Galarza, to arrange the evacuation of the prisoners; but little was done over the next five days.5
On 2 November, a group of anarchists had visited the Cárcel de San Antón, a converted convent, and picked out the file-cards of the four hundred army officers detained there. The youngest had been interrogated and offered the chance to fight for the Republic. They all refused, which constituted mutiny. On 4 November, Getafe to the south fell and, on the same day, between thirty and forty officers were ‘tried’ by a Tribunal Popular. Having reaffirmed that they abjured their oath of loyalty, at dawn on 5 November they were removed from the prison and shot. Another forty were taken later the same day and also shot on the outskirts of the capital. The following day, a further 173 were evacuated in three batches. The first and the third, each of fifty-nine prisoners, reached Alcalá de Henares safely. The fifty-five prisoners of the second convoy were executed at Paracuellos, halfway to Alcalá. These evacuations on 6 November, but not the murders, were authorized by the Director General of Security, Manuel Muñoz, who had also ordered others from the Cárcel de Ventas between 27 October and 2 November.6"
"As a result of the tribunals conducted by agents of the CPIP, from late October onward the rhythm of sacas accelerated. The illegality of this deeply distressed senior Republicans. Luis Zubillaga, the secretary general of the Bar Association, and Mariano Gómez, the acting president of the Supreme Court, took the extraordinary step of seeking the help of the anarchist Melchor Rodríguez, whose efforts to save many rightists had already earned him the suspicion of his comrades. The incorporation into the government, on 4 November, of four anarchist ministers, Juan López (Commerce), Federica Montseny (Health), Juan Peiró (Industry) and Juan García Oliver (Justice), led Zubillaga and Gómez to hope that some official support might be given to Melchor’s humanitarian efforts. In fact, García Oliver had been one of the founders of the FAI along with Durruti. His record of frequent imprisonment for terrorist acts made him a remarkable choice. The logic behind it was the hope that he might be able to persuade the anarchist rank and file that the implementation of justice could be left to the state. Zubillaga and Gómez wanted him to appoint Melchor Rodríguez to the post of Director General of Prisons, vacant since the resignation of Pedro Villar Gómez in late September. However, given the threat to Madrid posed by Franco’s columns, the protection of prisoners was not a priority for García Oliver."
"García Oliver refused to appoint Melchor Rodríguez as Director General of Prisons without first checking with the regional and national committees of the CNT, which were deeply implicated in the repression and thus highly suspicious of Melchor Rodríguez. Accordingly, García Oliver appointed two trusted CNT stalwarts who had accompanied him from Barcelona, Juan Antonio Carnero as Director General and Jaume Nebot as Inspector General of Prisons.7 Rather than to prevent atrocities, the task given by García Oliver to Nebot was to locate and destroy the criminal records of all members of the CNT or the FAI who had ever been jailed.8"
Politicians flee to Valencia
"Not long after the fateful meeting finished, probably some time between 4.00 and 5.00 p.m., the Under-Secretary of War, General José Asensio Torrado, met Generals Sebastián Pozas, the Chief of Operations of the Army of the Centre, and José Miaja Menent, head of the 1st Military Division. After a lengthy discussion, he gave each a sealed envelope emblazoned with the words ‘Top Secret. Not to be opened until 6 a.m. tomorrow’. Given the urgency of the situation, as soon as Asensio left for Valencia, both generals ignored the instruction and opened the envelopes. They discovered that each contained the orders meant for the other. Pozas was ordered to set up a new headquarters for the Army of the Centre at Tarancón on the road to Valencia. Miaja was placed in charge of the defence of the capital and ordered to establish a body, to be known as the Junta de Defensa, which would have full governmental powers in Madrid and its environs. Had they complied with the instruction not to open the envelopes and gone back to their respective headquarters, they would have seen their orders when they were many miles apart, with catastrophic consequences for the defence of the city. Whoever sealed the envelopes was probably a rebel sympathizer.12"
"The view of the cabinet and the large numbers of functionaries who fled to Valencia was that the capital was doomed and that the Junta was there merely to administer the inevitable defeat. In the event, under intolerable pressure and against all odds, it was to preside over a near miraculous victory.13 Miaja’s awesome task was to organize Madrid’s military and civil defence at the same time as providing food and shelter for its citizens and the refugees who thronged its streets. In addition, he had to deal with the violence of the checas and the activities of the fifth column.14 The Junta de Defensa was thus a localized mini-government. Its ‘ministers’ were known as Councillors and their deputies would be chosen from all those parties that made up the central government. However, it was to the Communists that Miaja would turn first in search of help. And they were ready and waiting."
"The first official meeting of the hastily formed Junta de Defensa was not until the late afternoon of 7 November. However, there can be no doubt that, from late the previous evening, overall operational responsibility for the prisoners lay with three men: Santiago Carrillo Solares, his deputy José Cazorla Maure and Segundo Serrano Poncela, who was effectively Director General of Security for Madrid. Key decisions about the prisoners were clearly taken in the vacuum between the departure of the government for Valencia on the evening of 6 November and the formal constitution of the Junta de Defensa twenty-four hours later. However, it is inconceivable that those decisions were taken in isolation by three inexperienced young men aged respectively twenty-one (Carrillo), thirty (Cazorla) and twenty-four (Serrano Poncela). The authorization for their operational decisions, as will be seen, had to have come from far more senior elements. Certainly, it required the go-ahead from Checa and Mije who, in turn, needed the approval of Miaja and probably of the Russian advisers. In the terror-stricken city, the aid provided by the Russians in terms of tanks, aircraft, the International Brigades and technical experience ensured that their advice would be sought and gratefully received. The implementation of the operational decisions also required, and indeed would receive, assistance from the anarchist movement."
Santiago Carillo: Managing public order
"Thus, the authorization, the organization and the implementation of what happened to the prisoners involved many people. However, Carrillo’s position as Public Order Councillor, together with his later prominence as secretary general of the Communist Party, saw him accused of sole responsibility for the deaths that followed. That is absurd, but it does not mean that he had no responsibility at all. The calibration of the degree of that responsibility must start with the question of why a twenty-one-year-old member of the Socialist Youth should have been given such a crucial and powerful position. In fact, Carrillo was not entirely who he seemed to be at the time. Late on the night of 6 November, after the meeting with Miaja, Carrillo, along with Serrano Poncela, Cazorla and others, was formally incorporated into the Communist Party. They were not subjected to stringent membership requirements. In what was hardly a formal ceremony, they simply informed José Díaz and Pedro Checa of their wishes and were incorporated into the party on the spot.20
The brevity of the proceedings indicates that Carrillo was already an important Communist ‘submarine’ within the Socialist Party. In prison after the miners’ uprising in Asturias in October 1934, as secretary general of the Socialist Youth Movement (Federación de Juventudes Socialistas), he began to advocate its merger with the numerically smaller Communist equivalent, the Unión de Juventudes Comunistas. This was noted by Comintern agents and Carrillo was identified as a candidate for recruitment. The most senior Comintern representative in Spain, the Argentinian Vittorio Codovila, arranged for him to be invited to Moscow to discuss the potential unification of the FJS with the UJC. On being released from prison after the elections of 16 February 1936, he had immediately applied for a passport to travel to Russia. It represented a dazzling prospect for him. After a year incarcerated with Largo Caballero, Carrillo, like other prominent members of the Socialist Youth, sensed that the PSOE was yesterday’s party. The Socialist leadership of middle-aged men rarely allowed young militants near powerful positions in its sclerotic structures. Carrillo now went to Moscow as the guest of the KIM, the Communist International of Youth, on 3 March. The KIM was closely watched by the Russian intelligence service, the NKVD (the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs). Thus it is highly likely that Carrillo, who had already been identified for grooming as a potential Comintern star, was thoroughly vetted in Moscow and would have been obliged to convince his bosses of his loyalty to the Soviet Union.
On his return to Spain, Carrillo took part in a meeting of the Communist Party Central Committee on 31 March, at which he suggested that the Socialist Youth seek membership of the KIM and that the PSOE unite with the PCE and join the Comintern. Attendance at Central Committee meetings was a privilege not normally extended to outsiders.21 In his memoirs, Carrillo made the even more startling admission that by early November 1936, although still formally a member of the Socialist Party, he was attending meetings of the PCE’s Politbureau, an indication of great seniority.22 With the help of Codovila, in April 1936, he secured an agreement to unite the Socialist and Communist youth movements (FJS and the UJC) as the United Socialist Youth (Juventudes Socialistas Unificadas). In some areas of Spain, although not all, unification took place immediately. In September, Carrillo would be named secretary general of the new youth movement, which was in some places a Communist organization. In general terms, the JSU constituted a massive advance of Communist influence at the expense of the Socialist Party. By this time, if Carrillo was not already a member of the PCE, he was very close to being so."
"Subsequently, Francoist propaganda built on the atrocity of Paracuellos to depict the Republic as a murderous Communist-dominated regime guilty of red barbarism. Francoists have even claimed that the number murdered was 12,000.111 Despite the fact that Santiago Carrillo was only one of the key participants in the entire process, the Franco regime, and the Spanish right thereafter, never missed any opportunity to use Paracuellos to denigrate him during the years that he was secretary general of the Communist Party (1960–82) and especially in 1977 as part of the effort to prevent the legalization of the Communist Party. Carrillo has himself inadvertently contributed to keeping himself in the spotlight by absurdly denying any knowledge of, let alone responsibility for, the killings. However, a weight of other evidence confirmed by some of his own partial revelations makes it clear that he was fully involved.112"
"For instance, in more than one interview in 1977 Carrillo claimed that, by the time he took over the Council for Public Order in the Junta de Defensa, the operation of transferring prisoners from Madrid to Valencia was ‘coming to an end and all I did, with General Miaja, was order the transfer of the last prisoners’. It is certainly true that there had been sacas before 7 November, but the bulk of the killings took place after that date while Carrillo was Councillor for Public Order. His admission that he ordered the transfers of prisoners after 7 November clearly puts him in the frame.113 Elsewhere, he claimed that, after an evacuation had been decided on, the vehicles were ambushed and the prisoners murdered by uncontrolled elements. He has frequently insinuated that the killers were anarchists and has stated, ‘I can take no responsibility other than having been unable to prevent it.’114 This would have been hardly credible under any circumstances, but especially so after the discovery that there had been a CNT–JSU meeting on the night of 7 November.
Moreover, Carrillo’s post-1974 denials of knowledge of the Paracuellos killings were contradicted by the congratulations heaped on him at the time. Between 6 and 8 March 1937 the PCE celebrated an amplified plenary meeting of its Central Committee in Valencia. Francisco Antón said: ‘It is difficult to say that the fifth column in Madrid has been annihilated but it certainly has suffered the hardest blows there. This, it must be proclaimed loudly, is thanks to the concern of the Party and the selfless, ceaseless effort of two new comrades, as beloved as if they were veteran militants of our Party, Comrade Carrillo when he was the Councillor for Public Order and Comrade Cazorla who holds the post now.’ When the applause died down, Carrillo rose and praised ‘the glory of those warriors of the JSU who can fight in the certain knowledge that the rearguard is safe, cleansed and free of traitors. It is no crime nor is it a manoeuvre [against the CNT] but a duty to demand such a purge.’115
Comments made at the time and later by Spanish Communists such as Pasionaria and Francisco Antón, by Comintern agents, by Gorev and by others show that prisoners were assumed to be fifth columnists and that Carrillo was to be praised for eliminating them. On 30 July 1937, in a report to the head of the Comintern Giorgi Dimitrov, the Bulgarian Stoyan Minev, alias ‘Boris Stepanov’, from April 1937 the Comintern’s delegate in Spain, wrote indignantly of the ‘Jesuit and fascist’ Irujo that he had tried to arrest Carrillo because he had given ‘the order to shoot several arrested officers of the fascists’.116 In his final post-war report to Stalin, Stepanov referred to Mola’s statement about his five columns. Stepanov went on to write proudly that the Communists took note of the implications thereof and ‘in a couple of days carried out the operations necessary to cleansing Madrid of fifth columnists’. Stepanov explained in more detail his outrage against Irujo. In July 1937, shortly after becoming Minister of Justice, Manuel Irujo initiated investigations into what happened at Paracuellos, including a judicial inquiry into the role of Carrillo.117 Unfortunately, no trace of this inquiry has survived and it is a reasonable assumption that any evidence was among the papers burned by the Communist-dominated security services before the end of the war.118
What Carrillo himself said in his broadcast on Unión Radio and what Stepanov wrote in his report to Stalin were echoed years later in the Spanish Communist Party’s official history of its role in the Civil War. Published in Moscow when Carrillo was secretary general of the PCE, it declared proudly that ‘Santiago Carrillo and his deputy Cazorla took the measures necessary to maintain order in the rearguard, which was every bit as important as the fighting at the front. In two or three days, a serious blow was delivered against the snipers and fifth columnists.’119"
"Evacuations"
"In any case, evacuation orders were not the equivalent of specific instructions for murder – as was shown by the safe arrival of some evacuated prisoners at their destinations."
"Whoever signed the orders, in the midst of administrative collapse and widespread popular panic, the evacuation of eight thousand prisoners seemed impossible. Nevertheless, Carrillo’s Public Order Council would undertake the task.25 In the event, the evacuation became a massacre."
"Among those pushing for the evacuation – not necessarily the execution – of the prisoners were the Republican military authorities, General Miaja and his chief of staff, Vicente Rojo, the senior Russians present in Madrid and the Communist hierarchy. Given the crucial military assistance being provided by the Soviet personnel, and their own experience of the siege of St Petersburg in the Russian Civil War, it was natural that their advice should be sought. The most senior of the Soviet military personnel were Generals Ian Antonovich Berzin, the overall head of the Soviet military mission, and Vladimir Gorev. Berzin, along with Soviet diplomats, had gone to Valencia with the government, while Gorev, officially the military attaché but actually Madrid station chief of Soviet Military Intelligence (GRU), remained. Gorev would thus play a crucial role, alongside Rojo, in the defence of Madrid. Also present and involved was Mikhail Koltsov, the Pravda correspondent, perhaps the most powerful Russian journalist of the day. He was close to Stalin himself, although in Madrid, when not concentrating on his journalistic tasks, he seems to have been acting on Gorev’s instructions.26"
"Like their Spanish comrades, the Russian and Comintern officials were all alarmed to hear reports that the prisoners were already crowing about their imminent liberation and their incorporation into the rebel forces. Gorev, Berzin and other Russian advisers, including Vidali, insisted that it would be suicidal not to evacuate dangerous prisoners. Given the desperate situation of the siege, this was a view shared by Vicente Rojo and Miaja.27"
"Miaja quickly established a close relationship with one of the key players in the organization of the fate of the prisoners, José Cazorla.28 The taciturn Cazorla was equally determined to eliminate rebel supporters. For this task, as will be seen, he drew upon the advice of Russian security personnel. Every bit as concerned as Miaja about the prisoners was the forty-two-year-old and recently promoted Lieutenant Colonel Vicente Rojo. He regarded the fifth column as ‘an operational column with sufficient force and capacity to attack organized troops in the rear’. He was convinced that it was not made up only of spies, saboteurs and agitators but constituted a tightly woven network capable of influencing every aspect of the struggle, a network that had been organized long before the outbreak of war. At the beginning of November, he feared that it was capable of playing a decisive role in the fate of the capital. Accordingly, wrote Rojo, the military authorities had to take the decision to eliminate it.29 In November 1936, this was an over-pessimistic assessment of the operational capacity of the fifth column, which would not reach that level for many months yet. Nevertheless, Rojo’s view was an indication of the fear shaping Republican action and was quite reasonable, given the many times that accurate information about Republican movements had reached the rebels and the increase of sniping as the rebel forces were moving into the capital’s western approaches."
"There has been considerable speculation that Mikhail Koltsov played a key role in determining the fate of the prisoners. This is based on the entry in his diary for 7 November in which he described how, in the early hours of the morning, Pedro Checa took the decision to send militiamen to the prisons after pressure from ‘Miguel Martínez’, a supposedly Latin American Comintern agent with sufficient influence to give advice at the highest level. It has been widely assumed that ‘Miguel Martínez’ was none other than Koltsov himself because some of the activities attributed in his diary to ‘Miguel Martínez’ are known to have been carried out by Koltsov himself. Moreover, at a meeting in Moscow in April 1937, Stalin jokingly called Koltsov ‘Don Miguel’. However, it is probable that ‘Miguel Martínez’ was a composite personality invented by Koltsov in order to include material in his published diary that he could not attribute directly to his informants.
In his memoirs, Vicente Rojo refers to a foreign Communist, ‘Miguel Martínez’, who helped Contreras organize the Fifth Regiment. Rojo knew Koltsov and had no reason not to mention him by name. Accordingly, it is clear that, for Rojo, ‘Miguel Martínez’ was someone other than Koltsov, almost certainly a Spanish-speaker who worked with Vidali at the Fifth Regiment and went by the name of ‘Camarada Miguel’. The only man fitting this description was an NKVD operative named Josif Grigulevich.30 In the very small NKVD presence in Spain, of fewer than ten operatives, some were ‘legal’ – that is to say, declared to the Spanish Foreign Ministry and having diplomatic cover – and some (two or three) were ‘illegal’, that is to say, working undercover. An example of the first would be Lev Lazarevich Nikolsky, the acting NKVD station chief in Madrid who went by the name Aleksandr Orlov, and of the second Josif Grigulevich. Nikolsky/Orlov was in Spain to advise on the creation of security services and to liquidate foreign Trotskyists."
"Thus, in Koltsov’s diary, ‘Miguel Martínez’ was sometimes Koltsov himself, sometimes Grigulevich, sometimes General Gorev and perhaps sometimes someone else.31"
"Another senior Communist, Enrique Castro Delgado, commander of the Fifth Regiment, had as his political commissar Vittorio Vidali, an NKVD agent. There can be no doubt, as will be seen, that they discussed the execution of prisoners. The journalist Herbert Matthews wrote later of the massacre of prisoners:
I believe, myself, that the orders came from the Comintern agents in Madrid because I know that the sinister Vittorio Vidali spent the night in a prison briefly interrogating prisoners brought before him and, when he decided, as he almost always did, that they were fifth columnists, he would shoot them in the back of their heads with his revolver. Ernest Hemingway told me that he heard that Vidali fired so often that the skin between thumb and index finger of his right hand was badly burned.36"
"In support of Matthews’s comment on Vidali/Contreras, there is a remarkable passage in the memoirs of Castro Delgado. Castro described how, on the night of 6 November, after talking to Contreras, he said to someone identified only as Tomás, the head of a special unit: ‘The massacre starts. No quarter to be given. Mola’s Fifth Column must be destroyed before it begins to move. Don’t worry about making a mistake! There are times when you find yourself in front of twenty people knowing that one of them is a traitor but not which one. So you have a problem of conscience and a problem concerning the Party. You understand?’ Tomás understood only too well that, to make sure of killing the traitor, some innocent people would have to die. Castro continued, ‘Bear in mind that a break-out by the Fifth Column would be a lot to cope with for you and for everyone.’ Tomás asked: ‘A completely free hand?’ Castro replied: ‘This is one of those free hands that the Party, at times like this, can deny to no one – least of all you.’ Tomás agreed and Castro then turned to Contreras, who had been present throughout, and said: ‘Let’s get a few hours’ sleep. Tomorrow is 7 November. The day of decision. That’s what it was for the Bolsheviks and what it will be for us. Are we thinking along the same lines or is there anything that you don’t agree about, Commissar?’ Contreras: ‘We’re in agreement.’38 Since Vidali was the senior partner, it is reasonable to assume that it was his instructions that Castro was giving to Tomás.
On 12 November, an article in the Fifth Regiment’s newspaper suggested that Castro Delgado’s instructions had been taken to heart:
In our city, there are still some of Mola’s accomplices. While the rebels’ evil birds drop their murderous bombs, killing defenceless women and children, the fascist elements of the fifth column throw hand grenades and fire their pistols … We know only too well what the hordes of Moors and the Legion will do if they get into Madrid. We can have no mercy for the accomplices of those savages. The fifth column must be exterminated! The committees of every apartment block must locate where the fascist, the traitor, the suspect is hiding and denounce them. In a matter of hours, let us exterminate them!39"
"In the published résumé of the Causa General proceedings, there is a statement that ‘Representatives of the [NKVD], calling themselves comrades Coto, Pancho and Leo, backed up by an individual who used the name José Ocampo and several female interpreters, all installed in the Hotel Gaylord, in Calle Alfonso XI … were directing the activities of the Marxist police of Madrid.’42"
"By following the advice of these experienced technicians, the Brigada achieved maximum efficacy in a new area of police activity made necessary by wartime circumstances. The report stated that ‘the collaboration of said technicians was ever more intense until a total mutual understanding between the Spanish and Russian security services was reached’.46 Grigulevich later described himself as ‘the right hand of Carrillo’ in the Public Order Council.47 According to the records of the NKVD’s successor organization, the KGB or Committee for State Security, their friendship was so close that years later Carrillo chose Grigulevich to be his son’s secular ‘godfather’.48
It is clear that Miaja, Rojo, Gorev and the senior leadership of the Communist Party were all anxious to see the prisoner question resolved with the greatest urgency. They certainly approved of prisoner evacuations but not necessarily of executions, although it is possible that they approved of them too. What is likely is that, in the meetings immediately following the creation of the Junta de Defensa, they delegated responsibility to the two-man leadership of the PCE. They, who certainly did approve of the execution of prisoners, passed organizational responsibility to Carrillo, Cazorla and Serrano Poncela. To implement their instructions, the trio could draw on members of the JSU who were given posts in the Public Order Delegation headed by Serrano Poncela, which then ran the Dirección General de Seguridad for Madrid. They could also count on assistance from Contreras/Vidali and the Fifth Regiment and from Grigulevich and the Brigada Especial. However, they could do nothing against the will of the anarchist movement which controlled the roads out of Madrid. Given that the anarchists had already seized and murdered prisoners, it was not likely that they would offer insuperable opposition to the Communists. Indeed, the formal agreement of senior elements of the CNT militias was soon forthcoming."
"Before returning for that encounter, Schlayer and the Red Cross delegate went to the Cárcel Modelo, where they learned that several hundred prisoners had been taken away. On coming back to the Ministry of War, they were greeted amiably by Carrillo, who assured them of his determination to protect the prisoners and put a stop to the murders. When they told him what they had learned at the Cárcel Modelo, he denied knowledge of any evacuations. Schlayer reflected later that, even if this were true, it raises the question why Carrillo and Miaja, once having been informed by him of the evacuations, did nothing to prevent the others that continued that evening and on successive days.50"
"Nuño reported that the CNT and JSU representatives, on the evening of 7 November, had decided that the prisoners should be classified into three groups. The fate of the first, consisting of ‘fascists and dangerous elements’, was to be ‘Immediate execution’, ‘with responsibility to be hidden’ – the responsibility being of those who took the decision and of those who implemented it. The second group, of prisoners considered to be supporters of the military uprising but, because of age or profession, less dangerous, were to be evacuated to Chinchilla, near Albacete. The third, those least politically committed, were to be released ‘with all possible guarantees, as proof to the Embassies of our humanitarianism’. This last comment suggests that whoever represented the JSU at the meeting knew about and mentioned the earlier encounter between Carrillo and Schlayer.52
The first consignment of prisoners had already left Madrid early in the morning of 7 November, presumably in accordance with the instructions for evacuation issued by Pedro Checa in response to Koltsov/Miguel Martínez. Thus some prisoners were removed and killed before the formal agreement with the CNT made later that evening. There is no record of any difficulty of their getting through the anarchist militias on the roads out, and that is not surprising since there were CNT–FAI representatives on Serrano Poncela’s Public Order Delegation. Nevertheless, the agreement guaranteed that further convoys would face no problems at the anarchist checkpoints on the roads out of the capital and could also rely on substantial assistance in the gory business of executing the prisoners. The strongest CNT controls were posted on the roads out to Valencia and Aragon which the convoys would take. Large flotillas of double-decker buses and many smaller vehicles could not get out of Madrid without the approval, co-operation or connivance of the CNT patrols. Since Carrillo, Cazorla and Serrano Poncela knew this only too well, it is not plausible that they would have ordered evacuation convoys without first securing the agreement of the CNT–FAI. This undermines Carrillo’s later assertions that the convoys were hijacked by anarchists. The grain of truth in those claims resides in the certainty that the anarchists took some part in the actual killing"
"Later in the afternoon, according to the detailed descriptions left by three prisoners, large numbers were led from their cells in the Cárcel Modelo. Two men (those sent by Pedro Checa?) with numerous yellowing file-cards from the prison registry were accompanied by militiamen. They called out names through a loud-hailer and ordered the men to take all their belongings and wait below. Those named were a mixture of army officers, priests and civilians, young and old, with no apparent pattern. They speculated anxiously whether they would be transferred to other prisons outside Madrid or be killed. They were tied together in groups and forced to leave all their bags and cases behind. Moreover, they were searched and any remaining watches, money or valuables taken from them.55 They were loaded on to double-decker buses. Convoys consisting of the buses escorted by cars and trucks carrying militiamen shuttled back and forth over the next two days.
Their official destinations were prisons well behind the lines, in Alcalá de Henares, Chinchilla and Valencia. However, only about three hundred arrived. Eleven miles from Madrid, on the road to Alcalá de Henares, at the small village of Paracuellos del Jarama, the first batch, from San Antón, were violently forced off the buses. At the base of the small hill on which the village stood, they were lined up by the militiamen, verbally abused and then shot. In the evening of the same day, the second batch, from the Cárcel Modelo, suffered the same fate. A further consignment of prisoners arrived on the morning of 8 November. The Mayor was forced to round up the able-bodied inhabitants of the village (there were only 1,600 in total) to dig huge ditches for the approximately eight hundred bodies which had been left to rot. When Paracuellos could cope with no more, subsequent convoys made for the nearby village of Torrejón de Ardoz, where a disused irrigation channel was used for the approximately four hundred victims.56 There have been numerous assertions that ditches had already been dug.57 On 8 November, there were more sacas from the Cárcel Modelo. By then, news had already reached the prisoners of the first murders in Paracuellos del Jarama and Torrejón de Ardoz.
It is certain that, from approximately 8.00 on the morning of Saturday 7 November onwards, 175 prisoners were taken from San Antón and, later in the afternoon of the same day, more than nine hundred from the Cárcel Modelo. A further 185 to 200 were brought from the Cárcel de Porlier in the Barrio de Salamanca. Another 190 to 200 were taken from the Cárcel de Ventas. On that day, 1,450–1,545 prisoners were removed from Madrid’s four jails. Thereafter, there were sacas, on 7, 8, 9, 18, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29 and 30 November and 1 and 3 December. The Cárcel Modelo was the prison with the highest number of victims – 970 – but suffered sacas only on the first three days. By 16 November, the Francoists were so close that the Carcel Model had to be evacuated and was used as headquarters for the Durruti Column and the International Brigades despite heavy bomb damage. The prisoners were taken to the other Madrid jails, Porlier, Ventas and San Antón, and to Alcalá de Henares. Porlier saw sacas on 7, 8, 9, 18, 24, 25 and 26 November and 1 and 3 December. Of these, a total of 405 were murdered in Paracuellos or Torrejón. Sacas from San Antón on 7, 22, 28, 29 and 30 November saw a total of four hundred prisoners murdered in Paracuellos or Torrejón. Five other expeditions of prisoners from San Antón, two on 7 November and three more on 27, 28 and 29 November, arrived safely in Alcalá de Henares. From the prison at Ventas, sacas on 27, 29, 30 November and 1 and 3 December ended with about two hundred murders at Paracuellos or Torrejón. The total numbers killed over the four weeks following the creation of the Junta de Defensa cannot be calculated with total precision, but there is little doubt that it was somewhere between 2,200 and 2,500.58"
"All these sacas were initiated with documentation on Dirección General de Seguridad notepaper indicating that the prisoners were either to be released or to be taken to Chinchilla. When the order was for them to go to Alcalá de Henares, they usually arrived safely. This indicates that ‘liberty’ and ‘Chinchilla’ were codewords for elimination.59 The specific orders for the evacuations of prisoners were not signed by Carrillo, nor by any member of the Junta de Defensa. Until 22 November, such orders were signed by Manuel Muñoz’s second-in-command in the Dirección General de Seguridad, the head of the police Vicente Girauta Linares. Until he followed Muñoz to Valencia, Girauta was under the orders of Serrano Poncela, Muñoz’s successor for Madrid. Thereafter, the orders were signed either by Serrano Poncela himself, or else by Girauta’s successor as head of the Madrid police, Bruno Carreras Villanueva.60 In the Causa General, there are several documents signed by Serrano Poncela. Its published version reproduces two. The one dated 26 November 1936 read, ‘I request that you release the individuals listed on the back of this page,’ of whom there were twenty-six named. The document dated 27 November read, ‘Please release the prisoners mentioned on the two attached sheets,’ which had 106 names. All those on these two lists were assassinated.61 No explicit orders for the execution have been found."
"Minister of the Interior, Ángel Galarza, on 6 November, to which Serrano Poncela added that those preparing the expedition knew that it was for ‘definitive evacuation’ of the prisoners, which presumably meant death. Accordingly, the categorization process was abandoned. Again, the prisoners had their wrists tied together with cord, usually in twos, and were dispossessed of everything of value. Between 9 and 10 the following morning, 8 November, seven to nine double-decker buses and two large single-deck charabancs arrived. The prisoners were loaded aboard and the expedition set off, escorted by armed militiamen and accompanied by the anarchist Manuel Rascón Ramírez and the three policemen, Sainz, Delgado and Urrésola.62 In the declarations made by those later interrogated by the Francoist police, there are no references to the convoys on this or any other occasion facing any difficulties from the anarchist militias guarding the roads out of Madrid. This suggests that the deal reached on the evening of 7 November between the CNT and JSU was being implemented. It is probable that Rascón Ramírez went along to ensure easy passage through anarchist checkpoints by confirming that the expedition had CNT–FAI approval.63"
"What happened that morning of 8 November at the Cárcel Modelo seems to have been the standard practice employed during the subsequent sacas. From that day, Carrillo had started to publish a series of decrees that would ensure Communist control of the security forces within the capital and put an end to the myriad parallel police forces. On 9 November, Carrillo issued two decrees that constituted a significant step towards the centralized control of the police and security forces. The first required the surrender of all arms not in authorized hands. The second stated that the internal security of the capital would be the exclusive responsibility of forces organized by the Council for Public Order. This signified the dissolution, on paper at least, of all checas.64 Under the conditions of the siege, Carrillo was thus able to impose by emergency decree measures that had been beyond the government. Nevertheless, there was a considerable delay between the announcement of the decree and its successful implementation. The anarchists resisted as long as they could and the Communists never relinquished some of their checas.
Shortly after taking up office, Carrillo had called a meeting with representatives of the Comité Provincial de Investigación Pública. He reminded them that, when the CPIP had been created, Manuel Muñoz had said it was a temporary structure while the Dirección General de Seguridad was being purged, after which some of its members would be incorporated into the police. Carrillo declared that the moment had arrived.65 Accordingly, by his decree of 9 November, he returned the services of security and investigation to the now reformed police and suppressed all those groups run by political parties or trade unions. This meant the end of the CPIP, known as the Checa de Fomento. In fact, several of its members, including Manuel Rascón Ramírez and Manuel Ramos Martínez, were already working with the Public Order Delegation. The treasurer of the Checa de Fomento handed over 1,750,000 pesetas in cash, gold to the value of 600,000 pesetas and 460 chests full of valuable household items, including silver, porcelain, clocks and radios, that had been taken in house searches and from those arrested. Other items of jewellery had been regularly delivered to the Dirección General de Seguridad.66"
"The Public Order Delegation took over the activities, and absorbed many of the personnel, of the CPIP. Control of roads in and out of the capital was to be in the hands of the police, the Assault Guards and Rearguard Security Militias (MVR) and co-ordinated by Serrano Poncela’s Delegation. The Delegation had a representative in each police station and in each of the principal prisons. According to Carrillo, the only opposition to his centralization measures came from the anarchists. Indeed, the closure of Felipe Sandoval’s checa in the Cine Europa was resisted and eventually required the intervention of the Assault Guards. Carrillo’s measures constituted the institutionalization of the repression under the Public Order Delegation in the DGS. Despite the presence of two CNT–FAI members and the fact that many ex-members of the component groups of the CPIP now became policemen, the Delegation was dominated by the Communists. They were thus able to push forward the reconstruction of the Republican state which had been a crucial necessity since the military coup had shattered the apparatus of government.69"
"That ‘release’ (execution) orders came from Serrano Poncela was confirmed by the declaration of another policeman, Álvaro Marasa Barasa. In fact, the tribunals established after the August events in the Cárcel Modelo had already drawn up lists of candidates to be shot, some of whom had been executed in the course of September and October. Now, agents would arrive at each prison late at night with a general order signed by Serrano Poncela for the ‘liberation’ of the prisoners listed on the back or on separate sheets. The director of the prison would hand them over and they would then be taken to wherever Serrano Poncela had indicated verbally to the agents. The subsequent phase of the process, the transportation and execution of the prisoners in the early hours of the following morning, was supervised by the Inspector General of the rearguard militias, Federico Manzano Govantes, or his deputy on the day. The actual tasks were carried out each day by different groups of militiamen, sometimes anarchists from the rearguard militias, sometimes Communists from the checa in the Calle Marqués de Riscal and sometimes from the Fifth Regiment. The prisoners were obliged to leave all their belongings, which were handed over to Santiago Álvarez Santiago. They were then tied together in pairs and loaded on to buses. Usually, Manuel Rascón or Arturo García de la Rosa went along and delivered the coup de grâce to prisoners not killed when the militiamen fired.72"
"If Galíndez knew what was happening, it is impossible that Carrillo did not. This is demonstrated by the minutes of the meeting of the Junta de Defensa on the night of 11 November. The Councillor for Evacuation, Francisco Caminero Rodríguez (of the anarchist youth), asked if the Cárcel Modelo had been evacuated. Carrillo responded by saying that the necessary measures had been taken to organize the evacuations of prisoners but that the operation had had to be suspended. At this, the Communist Isidoro Diéguez Dueñas, second-in-command to Antonio Mije at the War Council, declared that the evacuation must continue given the seriousness of the problem of the prisoners. Carrillo responded that the suspension had been necessary because of protests emanating from the diplomatic corps, presumably a reference to his meeting with Schlayer. Although the minutes are extremely brief, they make it indisputably clear that Carrillo knew what was happening to the prisoners, if only as a result of the complaints by Schlayer.74
In fact, after the mass executions of 7–8 November, there were no more sacas until 18 November, after which they continued on a lesser scale until 6 December. Jesús de Galíndez, who was in constant touch with both the DGS and the various prisons as he tried to secure the release of Basque prisoners and members of the clergy, described the procedure that was followed. His account broadly coincides with those of Torrecilla Guijarro and Marasa Barasa. The tribunals would examine the antecedents of the prisoners to decide if they were dangerous – anyone so deemed would be executed. Those who had someone to vouch for them were released. Others remained in prison. Mistakes were made, with evident enemies of the Republic surviving and entirely innocent individuals being executed. Among the survivors were Manuel Valdés Larrañaga, a Falangist who was later Franco’s Ambassador to the Dominican Republic, Agustín Muñoz Grandes, who would become Franco’s Minister of War and Vice-President, and Raimundo Fernández Cuesta, one of the principal Falangist leaders and future minister under Franco.75"
"According to a prisoner held in Porlier, one of the tribunals there, known as the ‘tribunal de la muerte’, was headed by Felipe Sandoval. Since its members were usually drunk, its decisions were largely arbitrary. Elsewhere, the process of selection was more systematic and was facilitated by the exhaustive records held in the Technical Section of the DGS. This consisted of the files on all those arrested since the beginning of the war, with the reasons for the arrest together with details of their fate – release, imprisonment, trial, execution. The Section also held the records of right-wing groups that had been seized by various militia groups. These files had been consolidated into one large archive at the DGS. There was relatively little material on the Falange, which had managed to destroy its records, but the files of Acción Popular, the Carlists and the Unión Militar Española were virtually complete. When the Junta de Defensa was created, the Technical Section’s holdings were passed over to Serrano Poncela’s Public Order Delegation.76
The sacas and executions, known collectively as ‘Paracuellos’, constituted the greatest single atrocity in Republican territory during the war, its horror explained but not justified by the terrifying conditions in the besieged capital. Unlike previous sacas, triggered by popular outrage at bombing raids or news brought by refugees of rebel atrocities, these extra-judicial murders were carried out as a result of political-military decisions. They were organized by the Council for Public Order but they could not have been carried out without help from other elements in the rearguard militias."
"At the end of the war, Serrano Poncela gave Jesús de Galíndez an implausible account of why he had left the Public Order Delegation. He claimed that he had had no idea that the phrases ‘transfer to Chinchilla’ or ‘place in liberty’ on the orders that he signed were code meaning execution. The use of such code could have been the way in which those responsible covered their guilt, as agreed at the meeting on the evening of 7 November. Serrano Poncela told Galíndez that the orders were passed to him by Santiago Carrillo and that all he did was sign them. If this were true it would not mean that he was ignorant of what was happening, given his presence in the Cárcel Modelo to supervise the saca of 7–8 November. He told Galíndez that, as soon he realized what was happening, he resigned from his post and not long afterwards left the Communist Party.95 This was not entirely true since he held the important post of JSU propaganda secretary until well into 1938. In an extraordinary letter to the PCE Central Committee, written in March 1939, Serrano Poncela claimed that he had resigned from the Party only once he was in France in February 1939, implying that previously he had feared for his life. He referred to the disgust he felt about his past in the Communist Party. He also claimed that the PCE prevented his emigration to Mexico because he knew too much.96
Subsequently, and in reprisal for Serrano Poncela’s rejection of the Party, Carrillo denounced him. In an interview with Ian Gibson, Carrillo claimed that he had nothing to do with the activities of the Public Order Delegation and blamed everything on Serrano Poncela. He alleged that ‘my only involvement was, after about a fortnight, I got the impression that Serrano Poncela was doing bad things and so I sacked him’. Allegedly, Carrillo had discovered in late November that ‘outrages were being committed and this man was a thief’. He claimed that Serrano Poncela had in his possession jewels stolen from those arrested and that consideration had been given to having Serrano Poncela shot.97 Serrano Poncela’s continued pre-eminence in the JSU belies this.
The claim that he personally had nothing to do with the killings was repeated by Carrillo in his memoirs of 1993. He alleged that the classification and evacuation of prisoners was left entirely to the Public Order Delegation under Serrano Poncela. Carrillo went on to assert that the Delegation did not decide on death sentences but merely selected those who would be sent to Tribunales Populares and those who would be freed. His account is brief, vague and misleading, making no mention of executions and implying that the worst that happened to those judged to be dangerous was to be sent to work battalions building fortifications. The only unequivocal statement in Carrillo’s account is a declaration that he took part in none of the Public Order Delegation’s meetings.98 However, if Manuel Irujo and José Giral in Valencia knew about the killings and if, in Madrid, Melchor Rodríguez, the Chargé d’Affaires of Argentina, the Chargé d’Affaires of the United Kingdom and Felix Schlayer knew about them, it is inconceivable that Carrillo, as the principal authority in the area of public order, could not know. After all, despite these later claims, he received daily reports from Serrano Poncela.99"
"Cazorla’s assumption of the role of Director General of Security for Madrid raises the question of what he had been doing since 6 November 1936 when he was first named Carrillo’s deputy in the Council for Public Order. In the Causa General file on Cazorla, it is claimed that he had played both an operational and a supervisory role in the sacas from the various prisons. It is alleged that, along with Arturo García de la Rosa, he ran a checa in the Calle Zurbano. It is further claimed that he sent instructions to the Public Order Delegation’s representatives in each police station ordering the execution of suspect prisoners. Under interrogation, Cazorla admitted that he was fully aware of the sacas and the subsequent killings, ‘with fictitious orders for transfers or release being signed by Serrano Poncela or Bruno Carreras whose job it was’. As Serrano Poncela’s deputy, Carreras had chosen as his own assistant the anarchist Benigno Mancebo, who had previously run the Checa de Fomento.100"
"The more precise targeting of fifth columnists was apparent in Galíndez’s description of the functioning of the Tribunales Populares. They were presided over by a judge and the jury consisted of two members of each of the Popular Front parties. The accused were given a public defender and allowed to call witnesses on their own behalf. These people’s courts were principally for trying those accused not simply of being right-wingers but of active hostility to the Republic (desafección al regimen). The maximum sentence was five years in prison. Membership of the Falange got three years; members of Acción Popular were usually fined unless guilty of spreading defeatism or of black marketeering. Those involved in hard-core fifth-column activities like espionage or sabotage would be tried by the Tribunal for Treachery and Espionage or by military courts.102 On 22 December, the government created work camps for those found guilty of sedition, rebellion and disloyalty.103 This last was a category that would be used substantially by Cazorla."
"What has gone before, like everything written about Paracuellos, is inevitably distorted because of the imbalance of material about the three phases of authorization, organization and implementation. It is possible to know that meetings took place at which evacuation and elimination were almost certainly discussed and authorization almost certainly given. These are the meetings on 6 November of José Miaja with Pedro Checa and Antonio Mije, of Mikhail Koltsov with Checa, and of Mije with Vladimir Gorev and Vicente Rojo. However, there is little or nothing by way of records of those conversations. In contrast, there is a vast quantity of material in the Causa General on the administrative organization of the sacas and on what happened at the prisons when militiamen arrived to load the prisoners on to the buses. Nevertheless, there is little material on the actual murders, on the specific parts played in the killing by the anarchists, by the Fifth Regiment or by the Brigada Especial created with the help of Orlov and Grigulevich. Accordingly, there will always be an element of deduction if not speculation about the collective responsibility.
Astonishingly, despite all the other problems of defending the besieged and starving city, the Junta managed to make a priority of controlling the checas and centrally co-ordinating the forces of order and security in Madrid. Its efforts in terms of rebuilding the state apparatus went far beyond the ineffective measures of General Pozas and the slightly more energetic efforts to control the checas made by Ángel Galarza in October. Nevertheless, the greatest death toll of rebel supporters in the city would take place on the Junta’s watch between 7 November and 4 December. Thereafter, there would be little of the indiscriminate violence that marked the early months of the war as the reorganized security forces targeted more specifically those perceived to be undermining the war effort, and the numbers executed plummeted."
Double standards in reporting
"Schlayer, accompanied by Henny and Pérez Quesada, had been to Torrejón where they found recently disturbed ground from which protruded arms and legs.81 An initial report on the first murders sent by Ogilvie-Forbes was minuted by Sir Robert Vansittart, the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office: ‘This is a ghastly tale of ghastly gangsters in whose hands the so-called “government” … is a bad joke. I suppose the other side will do as horribly in their turn.’82 In fact, British diplomats rarely acknowledged atrocities on the rebel side and never saw the differences between what happened in each zone. While the rebel authorities actively sanctioned atrocities throughout the war and after, it was precisely the Republican government’s opposition to them that limited them to the first five months of the war. In this context, it is worth noting the comment of the New Zealand journalist Geoffrey Cox: ‘The spotlight of publicity which has been turned on these unauthorised executions is, ironically enough, itself a reflection of the antagonism of the Spanish Government towards such deeds. For much of the information has become available only because of the freedom with which the Government has discussed the problem with foreign authorities and with visiting delegations.’83"
Melchor Rodriguez: Ending the Sacas
"After the mass sacas of 7 and 8 November, there was a brief interlude thanks to the anarchist Melchor Rodríguez and Mariano Sánchez Roca, the under-secretary at the Ministry of Justice. Those sacas had occurred in the absence of the Minister of Justice, García Oliver, and his Director General of Prisons, Juan Antonio Carnero, who had gone to Valencia with the rest of the government. Appalled by what was happening, the president of the Supreme Court, Mariano Gómez, and the secretary general of the Bar Association, Luis Zubillaga, sent a telegram requesting García Oliver once more to put Melchor Rodríguez in charge of the prisons in Madrid. Sánchez Roca, a labour lawyer who had represented various CNT militants including Melchor Rodríguez, managed to persuade García Oliver to name Melchor Special Inspector of Prisons. Surprisingly, García Oliver agreed. It is not known whether this had anything to do with the diplomatic protests although, as will be seen, other members of the government had heard about, and were appalled by, the sacas. On 9 November, before his appointment was officially announced, Melchor took up the post. By the time his appointment was made official five days later, he would already have resigned.84
When Melchor Rodríguez unofficially assumed the post of Inspector General of Prisons, his exact powers were imprecise, not to say debatable. Nevertheless, his first initiative on the night of 9 November was decisive. Melchor’s friend, Juan Batista, the administrator of the Cárcel Modelo, had told him that a saca of four hundred prisoners was planned. In response, he went to the prison at midnight and ordered that all sacas cease and that the militiamen who had been freely moving within the prison remain outside. He forbade the release of any prisoners between 6 p.m. and 8 a.m., to prevent them being shot. He also insisted on accompanying any prisoners being transferred to other prisons. In consequence there were no sacas between 10 and 17 November. His next objective was to get the militiamen out and the professional prison functionaries back.85 He explained his intentions to Schlayer and Henny. On behalf of the diplomatic corps, Schlayer wrote to Melchor Rodríguez to confirm what had been promised:
That you consider the detainees to be prisoners of war and that you are determined to prevent them being assassinated, except as a result of a judicial sentence; that you are going to implement the division of the prisoners into three categories, in the first those who are considered to be dangerous enemies and whom you intend to transfer to other prisons, such as Alcalá, Chinchilla and Valencia; in the second the doubtful ones, those who have been judged by the courts; and in the third, the remainder who should be released immediately.86
Melchor Rodríguez still had people hidden in the Palacio de Viana, where he had established his headquarters. This fact, plus Melchor’s decisive action in the prisons, was provoking tension with the Defence Committee of the CNT, which was heavily implicated in the murders of the prisoners. One of the more hostile anarchist leaders was Amor Nuño, who had made the deal with the Public Order Council for the evacuation and elimination of prisoners. García Oliver and Carnero appeared unexpectedly in Madrid on 13 November. In a discordant meeting, García Oliver informed Melchor that he had received reports from the Defence Committee and others about his activities. He made it clear that he did not approve of initiatives to stop the murder of prisoners. Far from being conciliatory, Melchor responded by demanding that those responsible for the killings be punished. When García Oliver told him to be reasonable, Melchor threw his appointment letter at him. Melchor’s nomination had been sent to the official Gaceta on 12 November but was not published until after the confrontation with García Oliver. After Melchor Rodríguez’s resignation, the sacas started again.87 Until he was re-appointed in early December, Melchor Rodríguez worked on his own in an effort to stop executions being carried out by the anarchist militias still operating out of the Checa del Cine Europa in defiance of Carrillo’s decree of 9 November.88"
"After the sacas began again on 18 November, Schlayer, Núñez Morgado and Henry Helfant (the Romanian commercial attaché) pressed the government to reappoint Melchor, as did Luis Zubillaga of the Bar Association and Mariano Gómez. Finally, on 25 November, García Oliver telephoned Melchor and asked him to come to Valencia. En route three days later, his car was ambushed by a group from the FAI. Nevertheless, he reached his appointment with García Oliver, who offered to make him Delegate for Prisons for Madrid and Alcalá de Henares. Melchor’s two conditions for accepting were that men on whom he could rely be made directors of prisons and that those guilty of atrocities be punished. Some days later, Melchor had an interview with the Minister of the Interior, Ángel Galarza, who agreed to support his nomination which was made public on 1 December. On his return to Madrid, Melchor again put a stop to the sacas, forced the militia groups out of the prisons and replaced them with Assault Guards. In some cases, he arrested men accused of murder, extortion and blackmail. He was fortunate in being able to count on the full support of the under-secretary at the Ministry of Justice, Mariano Sánchez Roca.93"
"On 6 December, the prison at Guadalajara had been attacked by a mob that had killed 282 prisoners.107 That mob had included nearly one hundred militiamen under the orders of Valentín González, ‘El Campesino’. Two days later, in Alcalá de Henares, a furious crowd including some of the same militiamen gathered to seek revenge for those killed and maimed in a bombing raid. Their target was the prisoners held there, many of them as a result of the evacuation from the Cárcel Modelo. Among the more famous prisoners were the Falangist leader, Raimundo Fernández Cuesta, the founder of the Assault Guards, Colonel Agustín Muñoz Grandes, the secretary of the CEDA, Javier Martín Artajo, and the radio personality Bobby Deglané. The recently arrived Melchor Rodríguez, showing greater courage than the prison functionaries who had fled, confronted the mob. Braving threats, insults and accusations of being a fascist, he argued that the prisoners were not responsible for the air raid and that the murder of defenceless men would bring shame on the Republic. His voice raw from making himself heard above the tumult, he said that they would have to kill him to get to the galleries. He also gave them pause by threatening to arm the prisoners. Campesino’s militiamen were led away by Major Coca, their commander, and the rest of the crowd drifted after them. Fearing that Coca planned to come back, Melchor went to his headquarters and, in a bitter confrontation with the Major, persuaded him to guarantee the safety of the prisoners. Melchor thereby saved over 1,500 lives.108"
"However, on his return to Madrid on the night of 8 December, Melchor was called before the CNT–FAI Defence Committee and severely criticized by its secretary, Eduardo Val. Melchor managed to calm his critics, but they were suspicious of his claim that he could stop the bombing of Madrid by negotiating with the rebels and offering to prevent any more assassinations of prisoners.109 Nevertheless, from 12 December, the situation was changing yet again. The Junta de Defensa had decreed that the militarization of all the militias and all their functions were under the control of the new Director General of Security, José Cazorla. In agreement with Cazorla, arrangements were made for young prisoners either to be forcibly conscripted into the Republican Army or, if they chose, to join work battalions building fortifications. It was later alleged that some of those ‘released’ or ‘transferred’ were taken to checas under the control of Cazorla. Certainly, Cazorla and Melchor Rodríguez did arrange for the release of those against whom there were no charges and of female prisoners over the age of sixty. Melchor Rodríguez also took measures to improve the food in prisons and created an information office where families could find out where prisoners were being held and their state of health. With the help of the Red Cross, he created a hospital service which ended up being used as a centre for fifth columnists. He also organized a party in the Romanian Embassy for recently released detainees.110 Despite suspicions of his links with the fifth column, Melchor Rodríguez’s success in stopping sacas raises questions about Santiago Carrillo’s inability to do the same."