Assisting internal refugees

To raise funds to support the vast number of refugees who fled into Republican Spain, the Ministry of Health’s Central Evacuation and Refugee Assistance Office (OCEAR) imposed a tax on all purchases, with the consumer receiving a ticket like this one.

Rebel conquest of Republican-held territory and news of the subsequent repression led large numbers of people to flee for safety. The evacuation of Madrid after it came under attack sent some 700,000 people, including many who had already fled to the city from elsewhere, out of the capital between November 1936 and April 1937. Eventually reaching a total of 3 million, these displaced people put additional stress on Republican authorities, who were already straining to supply their citizens with food.

There were a large number of organizations that dealt with refugees: political parties and trade unions, civil society groups, and official agencies at all levels of government, although over time these last became increasingly dominant.

By October 1936, the government of the Republic had created the National Committee for Refugees as part of the prime minister’s office. This was dissolved in January 1937, when refugees came under the Ministry of Health and Social Assistance headed by anarcho-syndicalist Federica Montseny. OCEAR was created the next month and operated until January 1938, when it was replaced by the General Directorate of Evacuation and Refugees of the Labour and Social Assistance Ministry. The government of Catalonia created its own agency to assist refugees in November 1936.

Provincial Refugee Committees allocated refugees to towns and villages on the basis of population, tax returns, and reports from municipal governments. In Castellón, which received 21,000 refugees, the provincial committee worked with a target of 6 refugees for every 100 residents. Local Refugee Committees were responsible for finding accommodation, either with families or in available buildings like barracks, convents, luxury hotels, or farms abandoned by large landowners. Some refugees found their own accommodation.

Relocating refugees could cause tensions, as when coal miners from Asturias found themselves in Catalan speaking villages, or people accustomed to big-city life in Madrid wound up in farming villages in Castellón. On the other hand, locals complained about refugees who avoided the work they were supposed to do. There were instances of refugees making collective complaints about their treatment to the authorities and others of municipal governments expelling refugees for creating problems. There were also cases of desperate refugee women turning to prostitution.

At the same time, the solidarity of local residents also played an important role in supporting refugees. In Viver i Serrateix in the province of Barcelona, with a population of 669 in 1930, twenty-seven local residents contributed items including beds, mattresses, wool and cotton blankets, sheets and duvet covers to the refugees who were sent there.