Hardening Francoist Attitudes towards Political Opponents

Abstract

During the Spanish Civil War, a bitter debate over which side better protected or represented a profound threat to children led to harsher attitudes towards opponents and campaigns to ‘rescue’ children from the clutches of those presented as a danger. Government supporters charged that Francoists allowed children to witness executions behind the lines, while they protected youngsters from the criminal bombardment of civilians behind the lines. For their part, Francoists claimed that only they could protect youngsters from the barbarians on the left. Increasingly, Francoists hoped to win back the ‘souls’ of children ‘corrupted’ by ‘Reds’. The Francoists campaigned strongly for children evacuated overseas or to other parts of Spain to be returned from ‘Reds’ and to be re-educated as ‘Spaniards’. Catholics played an especially important role in these campaigns and in re-education initiatives, and this outlook would become part and parcel of the thinking of juvenile-court staff.