35 SPANISH ARTISTS
Only thirty-five need our help - ask for a chance to begin work again in a new world. Thirty-five artists - painters, sculptors, architects — are among the 400,000 Spaniards interned in concentration camps in Southern France. These exiles from their native land are enduring every hardship of exposure, cold and wet, sickness, hunger and disease. Their skill and talents are being wasted. Their lives and health are imperilled. Most of them have taken an active part in the cultural life of the Republic and for them to return to Spain would mean death or years of imprisonment. But Mexico has offered them a home.
They write:
Concentration Camp, No. 27,
Agde, Herault. 16/4/39.
We plead with you, our honoured British colleagues, to consider our distress. We, like other intellectuals in the camps, are anxiously awaiting British help which we so ardently hope will come before it is too late. The Commission of Intellectuals and Liberal Professions formed in the camp expresses the hope that the generosity which has been so characteristic of the British in the past will once more express itself.
Our one wish is to be able to get out of the camp or at least to be relieved of our great suffering.
We salute you sincerely.
On behalf of the Commission of Intellectuals and Liberal Professions,
JOSE P. GARETO
MANUEL VIDIELLA MORATTO
FRANCISCO DE LUCAS VASQUES
RAMELO PARIS PIUDENCIA