Guadalupe Ezkurra Urmán

Dicastillo, 1896 - Zaragoza, 12th May 1949

Guadalupe was born in 1896 in Dicastillo, Navarra and she died the in Zaragoza the 12th May of 1994. During 1938 she lived in Calle de la bajada Javier (the historic center of Pamplona), with her husband Conrado García and her 4 children, Joaquina, Celestino (Kino), Alfredo and José Maria. Guadalupe and Basilisa, a friend of hers, went to help the socialist prisoners in the prison of Ezkaba in 1934, they were both part of the “Casa del pueblo” organization (it was the local branch office of the Sspanish Socialist Workers’ Party).

During the Civil War, Guadalupe helped republican people who wanted to go to the exile in France and because of that, Guadalupe was arrested accused of rebellion. Her granddaughters said that she was a member of the International Red Aid and that she took people who wanted to cross the border towards France in, she helped them by hiding them in her house and early in the mornings she used to transfer them to Burlada, so they could finally reach France. Her husband, Conrado, died during the war, so she was left widow with 4 children.

Guadalupe was arrested in 1939, someone had warned her and she was able to escape through rooftops of Pamplona's city center. But when they went into Guadalupe’s house and saw that she wasn't there, they took her kids as prisoners and threatened her saying that they were going to send her oldest children to prison. Guadalupe turned herself in, and she was condemned to 8 years in prison and 1 day for incitement to rebellion. Her daughter Joaquina and her oldest son Celestino went to trial and they saw her mother in a really bad shape: they had shaved Guadalupe’s hair and made her drink castor oil, while the guards made fun of her. That was a very used form of humilliation used by Franco's regime to punish republican women. 

Once Guadalupe was imprisoned, her children were left alone, so her oldest daughter, at 18 years old, got married and moved to Zaragoza. Celestino, at14 years old, moved to France and the 2 youngest sons, Alfredo, 9 years old and Jose M., 4 years old, were sent to “Misericordia” house in Pamplona (charity housing). In February of 1940 she got her sentence reduced to two years. 

Guadalupe always remembered the bad nights she had gone through in jail and the threats she got. 

SOURCES:

Kowasch Velasco, A.: “Tejiendo redes / Sareak Ehotzen. Mujeres solidarias con los presos del Fuerte de San Cristóbal (1934-1945) / San Kristobal Fuerteko presoekin elkartasuna izan zuten emakumeak (1934-1945)” .  Publicaciones Gobierno de Navarra. Navarra 2017.