Esteban Pallarols

This name uses Spanish naming customs: the first or paternal family name is Pallarols, the second or maternal family name is Xirgu.

Esteve Conrad Francesc Pallarols Xirgu (18 July 1900 – 18 July 1943) was a Catalan anarchist who became the first General Secretary of the CNT in clandestinity after the end of the Spanish Civil War. He organised the release of anarchist prisoners from Francoist concentration camps and their subsequent escape from Spain, for which he was executed by the Francoist authorities.

Esteban Pallarols
Esteve Pallarols
General Secretary of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo
(interior)
In office April 1939 – November 1939 Serving with Germinal Esgleas (in exile)
Preceded by	Mariano R. Vázquez
Succeeded by	Manuel López López
Personal details
Born	Esteve Conrad Francesc Pallarols Xirgu (1900-07-18)18 July 1900 Cassà de la Selva, Girona, Spain
Died	18 July 1943(1943-07-18) (aged 43) Barcelona, Spain
Cause of death	Execution by shooting
Parents	Joan Pallarols Cabarrocas (father) Rosa Xirgu Currins (mother)

Biography

After a long exile in Cuba, during the Spanish Civil War, Pallarols was a technical adviser to the libertarian collective of Llíria, in the province of Valencia. When the war ended, he was interned in the Albatera concentration camp. He managed to escape from the camp using documentation provided by a Madrid group of the Iberian Federation of Libertarian Youth (Spanish: Federación Ibérica de Juventudes Libertarias; FIJL), which it had obtained through one of its members who had infiltrated the Falange in Puente de Vallecas.

Pallarols immediately contacted three libertarian leaders who were in hiding in Valencia - José Cervera Bermell, Luis Úbeda Canero and Leoncio Sánchez Cardete - and the four of them formed the national board of the Spanish Libertarian Movement (MLE), established on 26 February 1939 by the CNT, the FAI and the FIJL. Their first activity was to forge documents that allowed the release of more libertarian prisoners from the Albatera camp and other camps in Valencia, who were quickly transferred to Barcelona and from there to France. To cover up the journeys, Pallarols created the shell corporation Frutera Levantina, officially dedicated to transporting fruit from Valencia to other parts of Spain. The task of creating the links in Catalonia and Occitania was entrusted to Génesis López and Manuel Salas, both recently released from the Albatera camp, who made contact in Nimes with various members of the MLE, and then López was taken to Paris where she met with the general secretary of the CNT, Germinal Esgleas, his companion Federica Montseny, and a few other libertarians. López managed to get 10,000 francs, which served to finance the passage of fifteen people to France.

Pallarols was arrested in Valencia by Franco's police, along with other members of the escape network he had set up. Eleven of those arrested were tried years later and sentenced to long prison terms. In a separate case, Pallarols was initially sentenced to 18 years in prison, but the judiciary elected to put him on trial again; this time he was accused of earlier alleged crimes and sentenced to death. He was shot on 18 July 1943. During his arrest, which according to other sources took place in Barcelona in February 1940, he was tortured: "He was given electric shocks, hung by his feet, subjected to fasting and sleep deprivation... until he spoke".

After Pallarols' arrest, a new national committee was formed, headed by Manuel López López, but he resigned shortly afterwards because of tuberculosis he had contracted during his stay in the Albatera camp, and was replaced by Celedonio Pérez Bernardo.

Bibliography

• Heine, Hartmut (1983). La oposición política al franquismo. De 1939 a 1952 (in Spanish). Barcelona: Crítica. ISBN 84-7423-198-1.
• Lorenzo Rubio, César (2020). "La máquina represiva: la tortura en el franquismo". In Oliver Olmo, Pedro (ed.). La tortura en la España contemporánea (in Spanish). Madrid: Los Libros de la Catarata. pp. 131–198. ISBN 978-84-1352-077-3.

Further reading

• Alcalde Hernández, Juan Jesús (1996) [1995]. Los servicios secretos en España: la represión contra el movimiento libertario español (1936-1995) (in Spanish) (2nd ed.). Confederación Nacional del Trabajo. OCLC 733428027.
• Casanovas Prat, Josep (December 2000). "Pallarols i Xirgu, Esteve". In Martínez de Sas, María Teresa (ed.). Diccionari Biogràfic del Moviment Obrer als Països Catalans (in Catalan). University of Barcelona. p. 1017. ISBN 848415243X.
• Gabarda Cebellán, Vicent (2007) [1993]. Els afusellaments al País Valencià (1938-1956) (in Catalan). University of Valencia. ISBN 978-84-370-8742-9.
• Gurucharri, Salvador; Ibáñez, Tomás (2010). "Clandestinidad y exilio: la primera etapa, 1939-1948". Insurgencia libertaria: Las Juventudes Libertarias en la lucha contra el franquismo (PDF) (in Spanish). Virus editorial. pp. 20–31. ISBN 978-84-92559-15-2.
• Herrerín López, Ángel (2003). "Reorganización y actividad de la CNT del interior en la primera década de la dictadura de Franco". Ayer (in Spanish) (51): 155–178. ISSN 1134-2277. JSTOR 41325224.
• Herrerín López, Ángel (2004). "La represión contra la CNT (1939-1949)". Historia contemporánea (in Spanish) (28): 375–395. doi:10.1387/hc.5041.
• Herrerín López, Ángel (2005). "Un episodi de la clandestinitat: La reorganització del Quart Comité Nacional de la CNT i la seva repressió". Recerques: història, economia, cultura (in Catalan) (50). Translated by Ollé Torrent, Maribel: 105–126. ISSN 0210-380X.
• Iglesias Turrión, Pablo (2015). Politics in a Time of Crisis: Podemos and the Future of Democracy in Europe (in Spanish). Translated by Scott Fox, Lorna. Verso Books. ISBN 978-1-78478-335-8.
• Íñiguez, Miguel (2001). "Pallarols Xirgu, Esteban". Esbozo de una enciclopedia histórica del anarquismo español (in Spanish). Madrid: Fundación de Estudios Libertarios Anselmo Lorenzo. p. 453. ISBN 9788486864453. OCLC 807322760.
• Montoliú Camps, Pedro (2005). Madrid en la Posguerra (in Spanish). Silex Ediciones. ISBN 84-7737-159-8.
• Ojeda Revah, Mario (1995). "La oposición anarquista al régimen de Franco, 1939-1976". Foro Internacional (in Spanish). 35 (3): 365–395. ISSN 0185-013X. JSTOR 27738520.
• Pozo González, Josep Antoni (2003). El Poder revolucionari a Catalunya durant els mesos de juliol a octubre de 1936: crisi i recomposició de l'estat (PhD) (in Catalan). Autonomous University of Barcelona.
• Pozo González, Josep Antoni (2012). Poder legal y poder real en la Cataluña revolucionaria de 1936: el Gobierno de la Generalidad ante el Comité Central de Milicias Antifascistas y los diversos poderes revolucionarios locales (in Spanish). Espuela de Plata. ISBN 978-84-15177-70-8.
• Prat Tarrés, Ramon. "La Sanitat a Torelló" (PDF). Monogràfics de Festa Major (in Catalan). L'Arxiu Municipal de Torelló: 14–49.
• Romanos, Eduardo (2011). "Emociones, identidad y represión: el activismo anarquista durante el franquismo". Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas (REIS) (in Spanish) (134): 87–106. doi:10.5477/cis/reis.134.87.
• Sánchez Agustí, Ferran (2006). El maquis anarquista (in Spanish). Editorial Milenio. ISBN 84-9743-174-X.
• Soriano, Jacinto (2018). Diccionario de la España franquista: 1936-1975 (in Spanish). Paris: L'Harmattan. ISBN 9782140082214.
• Vadillo Muñoz, Julián (2023). Historia del movimiento libertario español: del franquismo a la democracia (in Spanish). Los libros de la Catarata. ISBN 978-84-1352-780-2.

External links

• "Esteve Pallarols Xirgu". Anarcoefemèrides (in Catalan). Ateneu Llibertari Estel Negre.