In his preaching activity, Frank Taylor followed the tactic of never retracing his steps in a town or down a street if he could avoid it. This was one way of shunning irate left-wing Republicans who often took him for a Fascist agent circulating Catholic propaganda. In the town of Villamanrique, Ciudad Real, the word spread that Frank Taylor was a Fascist because the books he carried had the name of God in them, and, as he says, “God meant Catholic, which meant Fascist” to those people. At any rate, an angry crowd of some fifty communists surrounded him in the market square and shouted: “Down with him! Down with him!” Escape seemed impossible. But, following a suggestion he had received from a Catholic landlady, Frank began reading a strongly worded paragraph in the Society’s booklet Crisis. He read at the top of his voice, and then thrust the booklet into the hands of the ringleader, saying, “Read it for yourself.” The effect? Really amazing, as the crowd just about came to blows among themselves, some shouting in his favor and others against him. Amid the confusion our pioneer brother was able to slip away unharmed.

Frank Taylor thanked Jehovah for this deliverance. But that was not the end of the story. While cycling away at 6:30 in the morning he was surprised to see the plaza almost packed with about 200 people waiting to see him leave by bus. How grateful he was for that bike! Then up went the cry, “There he is!” “Believe me,” recalls Frank, “I never before put so much pressure on those pedals, and I did not stop until I was clear of that town and on my way to the next village.”

Conspicuous among all others were corpulent priests who were lounging around. In bars and casinos it was not uncommon to find five or six of them sitting around a table smoking cigars, and wearing their typical clerical garb, all dusty and dirty. When Bible literature was placed, it did not take long for these priests to begin pawing through the pages. You could see them looking for the Roman Catholic censor’s mark, and, failing to find it, they quickly informed the police, usually raising the charge of ‘Communism.’ This resulted in immediate arrest, if they could find me. Since this happened so many times, I grew wise, and it was not so difficult to dodge in and out of the narrow streets. I used to call it ‘fox and hounds.’”

The problem was that if they did not catch Brother Taylor in the town, they were sure to get him as he was leaving, since many towns had a kind of Customs control on the outskirts, and that is where the police waited to pounce on him. Then there would be wasted hours with interrogations and frustrating delays in releasing him. Usually Brother Taylor would ask to get in touch with the British Consul, since he was a British citizen. Finally, he would be released, since no genuine charge could be brought against him.

Our increased activity during this period brought pronounced reactions by Jesuit-inspired elements. In one town the pioneers were accused of “distributing literature of a ‘Jewish-Freemason tendency.’” Two sisters in another town were imprisoned and charged with distributing “booklets of Hitleristic character.” In yet other places, the brothers were branded as Protestants, which was like saying that they were the worst kind of infidels or heretics, as far as the uninformed Catholic majority was concerned.

MISTAKEN FOR FASCISTS

While Eric Cooke and Antonio Gargallo were witnessing in the village of Mediana, a woman falsely accused them of being Fascist agents and against the existing Spanish Republic. All the evidence she had was that a booklet placed with her spoke of God and of Christ! The village was practically 100 percent Communist, according to Brother Cooke, and to the villagers anything that spoke of God or Jesus Christ was Roman Catholic and therefore was Fascist. It was impossible to persuade them otherwise.

First, quite a crowd of women gathered. Then the town crier told Brother Cooke to clear out of the village or else he would notify the Civil Guard. The brothers did not leave and the police later arrived. At the headquarters the sergeant carefully examined the booklets and questioned Brothers Cooke and Gargallo. Finally, he said he could see nothing wrong at all, but would have to look into matters further since a complaint had been filed by the villagers. He then told Brother Cooke to take a letter to the lieutenant at the nearest town, feeling that he could better decide on the legality of our work.

As Eric and Antonio made their way down the rutted cart track, several coatless youths were running alongside them in the fields. Soon, a man and some boys came up behind the brothers. Over twenty of them converged at one point, reported Brother Cooke, who added: “Two seized our arms, accusing us of being Fascist propagandists. One bold youth stuck a pitchfork in my stomach in case I should try to escape. Another picked up the book Vindication in English, which I was carrying to read. ‘Look!’ he said, ‘Italian! These must be Fascist agents.’ Antonio attempted an explanation, but they were past being reasonable.”

Antonio’s book bag was pulled off the bike and the literature was thrown to the ground. Another assailant tried to tear the book bag off Eric’s back. Meanwhile, others were gathering sticks for a fire and some were trying to tear the volumes, preparing for a book-burning.

“Just at that point, when things looked hopeless,” reports Eric, “we saw their attitude change. The girls present started to run away. The grip on our wrists slackened. I looked behind, and coming round the bend were four members of the Guardia Civil. What a welcome sight! As Antonio said, Jehovah permitted matters to reach a certain point and then he intervened.”

Later, the brothers appeared before the civil governor, who was surprised that any doubt should have arisen about our work. He called attention to the unsettled political situation then existing. And that it was! This experience clearly illustrates the slippery political path that was being trodden by the Spanish people, one that was soon to plunge them into a terrible bloodbath.

“The Montaña barracks were near our little meeting hall. These became the scene of bloody battles, and all that zone was occupied by the military. Immediately, the foreign brothers had to leave the country, and we were left alone. Shortly afterward, all the Society’s belongings were taken from Calle de Cadarso [the location to which the branch office had earlier been moved] and we never knew to where. The thousands of books and booklets that were stocked there were either taken away or burned. The paper intended for the printed truth, the machines that had been employed in printing praise, the chairs on which we used to sit to study the Bible, the office from which the work was organized​—all were lost, sorrowfully lost! . . . The work in Spain had sunk into a sea of silence. All of this caused me infinite sadness, and we found ourselves alone, terribly alone, each one fending for himself, ‘skinned and thrown about like sheep without a shepherd.’”​—Matt. 9:36.

Just before the Civil War erupted, John and Eric Cooke had departed for a vacation in England. By 1936, Frank Taylor had completed his witnessing activity in the provinces of Sevilla (Seville) and Cádiz and was determined that his next objective would be the Balearic Islands, which he hoped to reach by ship via Gibraltar. He found himself in the frontier town of La Línea as the once sleepy place was pillaged and burned and then fell to the Fascists and their white-turbaned Moorish troops. As Brother Taylor was crossing an open space to the Customs house he was caught in a veritable hail of lead belching from the barrels of machine guns, rifles and pistols. But he made it, and after darkness fell he bolted across ‘no man’s land’ to the Gibraltar frontier. “A few shots streaked past me,” he recalls, “but I was free and sang for joy.”

Ernest Eden, on the other hand, was expelled from Spain, but not before he had spent some time in a subterranean prison that was quite like a tunnel blocked at both ends. There he and a German brother subsisted on a bread roll, a bowl of coffee and about a pint of cooked beans each day. “We were there two months,” recalls Brother Eden, “and I can recommend that food as a slimming diet.” Expulsion from the country was completed with a rigorous climb into the mountains and a walking, stumbling, falling, bruising descent down the French side. Once in France, the two brothers parted company and Ernest Eden eventually reached England.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Brother O. E. Rosselli, an American citizen, was preaching in the Canary Islands, Spanish territory off the west coast of Africa. While he was witnessing among scattered houses on a rough road, two soldiers rushed out of ambush and took him into custody. He spent twelve days as a prisoner and was then deported from Spain. What was his “crime”? He had been distributing the leaflet “What Is Fascism?” which states that Christians are neither Fascists nor Communists, but are witnessing about the Lord’s incoming kingdom.

So it was that our activities in Spain were affected disastrously by the Civil War. July 1936 started a period of eleven years of complete isolation and solitude. Each one of the Spanish Witnesses became like a flickering candle, trying to keep alight his flame of integrity amid suffocating spiritual gloom. A few succumbed, but the story of the majority is evidence of the insuperable power of Jehovah’s spirit that sustained them through those bleak years.

FACING TESTS DURING ISOLATION

All those seeking to please Jehovah were put through various tests, both during and after the Civil War, but the men especially were tested. If the start of the war found them living in territory controlled by the Republicans, they were expected to fight with them. However, if they were in “rebel” territory, they were expected to fight for the right-wing Catholic forces. Let us not forget that this issue arose in 1936, and although the brothers had a basic understanding of Christian neutrality, they did not have the benefit of The Watchtower dealing with that subject, which did not appear in English until November 1939. So, each brother knew that he had to maintain integrity one way or another, but lacked the clear vision that came later, as well as contact with the visible organization so as to resolve any doubts he had.

To illustrate the problems of those days, let us consider the case of Nemesio Orús, a married man with three small children living in Huesca. A few days after the war started, he was visited as a suspected Communist or Freemason, and his visitors tried to obligate him to applaud the soldiers as they were going off to war. Pressure also was applied to get him to join the local Fascist group. When he refused to do these things, he ended up on the “blacklist” for future reprisals.

One night in August 1936, Nemesio was arrested, interrogated by the police inspector, and jailed. Eventually he found himself in the Zaragoza jail, where he spent twelve days in a cell without a mattress, sleeping on just a blanket doubled on the floor. For witnessing to the other prisoners, Nemesio was put in solitary confinement for thirteen days. Finally, on December 16, 1936, he was released from prison.

This, however, did not end matters. The Orús family moved to Ansó where, in the winter of 1937, Nemesio received a notice from the Town Hall that he should present himself for military service. Desiring to maintain Christian neutrality, he did not comply, was jailed once again and finally freed as being medically unfit for military service. Thereafter, the Orús family moved to Barbastro, another town in the province of Huesca, where Nemesio again established his watch-repair business. He then lost all contact with God’s people for some ten years.

The postwar period was a time of great suffering for the Spanish people, including our few brothers and interested persons. In many places there were dire shortages of food and fuel. Under these circumstances, some of the brothers were able to manifest their Christian love. (John 13:34, 35) For instance, Salvador Sirera, who lived in the village of Pradell in Lérida, was able to cultivate a plot of ground and have his food supply guaranteed. Such was not the case for the brothers in Barcelona, where five carob beans were being sold for one peseta when an average daily wage was twelve to fourteen pesetas, and the basic commodities, such as bread and olive oil, were scarce. Hence, one can imagine Brother Juan Periago’s gratitude when Salvador came to Barcelona carrying foodstuffs for the needy brothers in that city.

The new rulers were determined to eliminate all vestiges of the previous republican rule, and so there was strict censorship of the mail and the press. Accordingly, when Sisters Natividad Bargueño and Clara Buendía decided to write to the Watch Tower Society in Brooklyn to obtain literature, their correspondence was mailed in vain. Their letters never left Spain, but were intercepted by the censor. A few days later the police called at the homes of these sisters and, after questioning them, and in one case searching the house, they warned them to drop their interest in these “lies.”

At that time it was required that all letters sent should have patriotic phrases written on the envelope. Otherwise, the mail would not be delivered. Therefore, in order to preserve their neutrality, God’s people did not write to the Society.

Another requirement was that on every occasion that the national anthem was heard, even by radio, everyone should stand and give the Fascist salute, no matter where he might be. The same patriotic procedure was required if a person was passing a military barracks at the raising or lowering of the flag, or if troops were passing by with the flag. So it was that one day Antonio Brunet Fradera and Luis Medina were walking along a Barcelona street when a battalion of soldiers came marching by with the flag. Everybody stood at attention and saluted the flag, except Antonio and Luis. At that, the officer in charge brought the battalion to a halt and threateningly ordered these young men to salute. When they refused, the officer grabbed their right hands and raised them in salute. But one of the brothers remarked: “We are not saluting. You are by raising our arms.” Furious, the officer let their arms fall and then pulled out his pistol and pointed it at them, saying: “Now you will salute, won’t you?” Again the brothers refused. “But can’t you see that I am going to shoot you if you don’t?” The reply? “You will only kill us if God allows it.” With that, the frustrated officer stuck the pistol back in its holster and led these young men away under arrest. But they had kept their integrity. Interestingly, Antonio Brunet had not even been baptized, for he was not immersed until some years later, in June 1951.

With the Catholic Church back in power, complications also arose for the children of Jehovah’s Witnesses, especially with regard to schooling. To receive an education at a State school it was necessary to produce a baptism certificate proving that the child was a baptized Catholic. Natividad Bargueño had not baptized her daughters in the Church, and when they became of school age she really had to search before finding a school that did not insist on the baptism certificate.

Even then there was a problem because the local parish priest insisted that all the pupils should attend his church on Sunday morning. To make sure that they did so, each one was given a blue card that was marked as they entered the church. Then every Monday morning these cards were checked at school to see if anyone had failed to attend. Recalling this, one of Nati’s daughters remarks: “Of course, my card never was marked, and every Monday I had to face up to this situation with the teacher. Finally, on one of these Mondays the teacher said: ‘This situation cannot go on like this. Either you will go to Mass or I will present the case to my superiors.’” Nati’s daughter went home and explained the problem to her mother, who took the simple step of teaching her daughter Acts 17:24 where it says that God does not dwell in handmade temples. The young girl repeated that scripture to the teacher in explaining why she did not attend the Mass. This succeeded, for the teacher no longer bothered her with the Monday interrogation. In fact, when the priest came on Mondays to check the blue cards the teacher deliberately held back the card of Nati’s daughter in order to avoid complications.