Start over in a faraway land ...

The Exile was hard, but living with a lifelong desire to return to their torn land was even worse. The first generation of exiles did not want to put down roots and they passed this feeling on to their children, whether or not they were born in exile. Women unconsciously carried out the task of reconciliation between their nostalgic past and their host country, and as time passed by, their cultural immersion and linguistic development came about. Many of these women were not exiles per se, neither were politically militant nor had participated to the war nonetheless they escaped, due to a collective fear or to personal reasons, following their partners, colleagues and fathers into exile. Sometimes they simply went alone.  Many of them, dragging their children along, went through the hardship of enduring and surviving the hell of the French and German concentration camps, not having been lucky enough to continue on to a third country. America was a step too far for many of the exiles, and soon, their lives and those of their families were endangerd by the neo-fascist yoke... and the rest is further history.

Related articles, availabe only in Spanish:

ALICIA ALTED | El exilio republicano español de 1939 desde la perspectiva de las mujeres

ANTONIETA JARNE | Identidad, compromiso y militancia del exilio femenino en México: Aurèlia Pijoan Querol