Mercè Boixader Aliguer, footsteps of war
Mercè was born on October 29th, of 1927, in a farmhouse on the outskirts of Olost. She had just made the first communion for May when the Civil War broke out, specifically, she was 9 years old.
She went to school in El Prat, the school that was in the village of Olost. This one was directed by nuns, and therefore, when the civil war arrived, they had to leave the town, since there was danger of being assassinated (or that ran between the voices of the town). In the class there were pictures of Franco, Saint Christ and Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera. Each day they were singing Cara el Sol, Arriba España, … all with the arm raised.
As she remembered well, her father had to leave far from home due to her fear that the mule would take her. In spite of it, it continued seeing his family, since each determined days they brought food and water to him so that it could continue hidden of the enemy.
When she was little they kept cows when she got back from school. Her mother put in a bucket the clothes to soften, and with 10 years already was going to rent it to a very deep throat.
When the war ended, however, the soldiers still resided in their homes; there were large pieces of the army. In order to be able to feed all these people, they made large pearls where they did the food, and everyone was going to fetch it there. All these soldiers were on the side of the Reds, that is, the defenders of a republic.
An anecdote that the Mercè explained to us is that the captain had given him some earrings that he had at the time of the interview, and that he was doing 75 years ago, since they did not let him be put until he had the 14 years old. He told us that they even wanted to buy them once he was going to fix them on a jeweler, but she did not accept it as they brought him great memories.