2023-12-28 17:22:56
La Vajol is the smallest town in the Girona counties, but its name has a place of honor in contemporary history. Not only because it was where “the last breath of the living Republic” was breathed, but because it was a refuge for the artistic treasures of the Museo del Prado and the economic, in the form of gold bars and jewels seized to finance the escape of refugees. Much has been written and speculated about this last point. now, the journalist Xavier Febrés has compiled and updated all the information in a book, an essential guide to the withdrawal, The treasure of the Vajol (Battles).
“After many years of legends, more pieces of information are appearing that allow us to outline the subject”, explained the author who defined the Vajol one “as the most truculent border deposit (also the smallest of the three) by being skilled inside a mine with a great technical deployment to set up an armored chamber».
Of what it contained and of its fate, the book gives good clues and becomes the best claim for a space, the mine, that since Vajol has been claiming for years “as a benchmark for withdrawal” and now, in collaboration with the Museu de l’Exili (Mume) de la Jonquera and the Diputació de Girona, they are working to dignify the space, having started rehabilitation work and opening it to visits coordinated by the Mume.
Febrés wanted, with The treasure of the Vajolhave a great impact, above all, on the content of the treasure that was in the mine “because today it is difficult to understand that the government, in a legal way, instituted an official entity, called the Caixa de Reparaciones, which centralized all the requests made to the rich, that is to say, private individuals who had fled.” Febrés clarified that they were resources in the form of gold bars or bars, jewelry and other valuables that were kept in safe deposit boxes in banks throughout the State and that they had nothing to do with official gold reserves of the Bank of Spain that ended up in the Soviet Union, legally sent by the government, “to pay for armament purchases”.
There are many doubts about that treasure, which he embarked on an old Alfonso XIII yacht to Mexico, because “no inventory was ever made”. At the beginning of the exile, the author explained, it was estimated that they could be between 10 and 40 million dollars from the 1930s.
Remove Negrín’s son from the front
The author too develops other hypotheses linked to the construction of the deposit, about which almost everything is unknown, because “it was a way of removing the eldest son of President Negrín, Juan, who was an engineer, from the battle front, entrusting him with this secret mission of directing the work of enabling the mine as a security deposit” .
In addition, Febrés rests on the idea that the departure of the treasure was “more orderly” than one might think: “The vast majority of the trucks involved passed through La Jonquera, Cervera and Portbou without incident, and only the last one had more difficulties through the Lli pass”, but it also happened.
The one who made it possible was Alexandre Blasi (1910-1989), who crossed the mountain on foot carrying the contents of the last truck. A few days ago, in a presentation at the same mine, his eldest son was among the attendees and he assured that his father hardly spoke to him about those moments.
During the event, editor Àngel Madrià defended the oral memory because, “although the written documentation is more reliable, it must be put into question because it was written by a part of society that, usually, are the winners”. According to him, Febrés’ work “contributes a spoonful of real, truthful and documented history”.
On the other hand, the director of the Mume, Miquel Aguirre, put into context the role played by the Canta mine during the Spanish Civil War. He spoke about the construction of the building and how it “was secret and discreet without the neighbors being able to access it”. He surrounded himself with carabinieri “to protect the works”, about which, said Aguirre, “there are more questions than answers, but in which resources were not spared because it was about making a good sarcophagus, well camouflaged in front of the threat of aerial bombardment”.
In fact, studying the property, they found drawn plant branches on the facade, the same ones that are in a bunker at the Garriguella airfield, and hooks to place a tarpaulin, also in camouflage.
The Canta mine was acquired by the Ajuntament de la Vajol in 2009, when it was already abandoned and in disuses, to the then owner, Miquel Giralt, who, Febrés recalled, was the one who “defended for decades and alone that the mine become a space of memory”. “If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t be here today,” he said flatly.
In this dream, the council took over and since then has been fighting for years to make the mine accessible. A first step was to declare it a Cultural Property of Local Interest (BCIL). But the road is steep, as the mayor Joaquim Morillo said, since they have accumulated negatives from the administration, especially the rejection of the Generalitat, to provide financial support. Year after year, they have rehabilitated it with contributions from the Provincial Council and now the Mume has made an audiovisual that is projected inside, opened an entry on Wikipedia and, soon, they will install brass pieces in different parts of the building . Also, from the museum, guided tours will be coordinated that can cover the first twenty meters of the mine tunnel.
The great milestone that the mayor wants to achieve, however, is to reach the end, that is, to travel the hundred and twenty meters to the armored chamberthat immense space that protected the treasure, now empty, but where the voices of the past still resound.
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