Franco’s repression limited access to Gibraltar

During Franco’s dictatorship the repression of those who had lived in the republican zone during the war or had been in touch with institutions of the Republican Government or with left-wing movements took different forms. Among them, social isolation and the narrowing of work opportunities to reduce their chances of survival. The repression was aimed at the entire family group and so families as a whole had to cope with it.

In La Línea the repression took the form of limiting the opportunities for working in Gibraltar. During the war and post-war, access to Gibraltar was denied to the relatives of those who fled to Tangiers or to the republican front. This happened to Antonio Barros. The frequent arrests and searches by the police which his father suffered were also part of this strategy. Manuel Gil Fornell, a writer from La Línea, describes those affected as «the generation of silence and gandinga (leftovers), we were punished by having our permits to work in Gibraltar refused».

In this context of shortage, high rates of illness linked to malnutrition and infection and hunger, this kind of repression had drastic consequences. When they saw their chances of working closed down, many people resorted to marginal activities like the black market or smuggling. This reinforced the labelling twice, and fed backwards and forwards into criminalisation: once someone labelled «red» (communist) was marginalised socially, they could easily be accused of other social offences (being «a smuggler» or «a bad woman»). At the same time, those involved in or abetting contraband could easily be linked to the left.