Argentina

The exile brought by the Civil War had in Argentina one of its central destinations, and the Basque Government organised it from there: with a delegation and a newspaper, with reception committees, with women’s organisations and with priests who helped those who had just arrived. Those years also gave rise to a new Basque centre, the one in Tandil.

The delegation of the Basque Government in Buenos Aires began its work in November 1938 and would come to carry weight across the whole of South America. It set itself two tasks, and put them in writing: to defend the image of the Basque Country on the River Plate against the propaganda of the rebels, and to encourage policies for receiving the exiles who were seeking refuge in Argentina.¹⁰ Pedro de Basaldúa was sent to reinforce it.¹¹

The delegation also had its printed voice. Its press organ, Euzko Deya, put on paper what the Basque Government had been defending abroad since 1936: its link with the presidency of Aguirre and its aim of giving political leadership to the diaspora, raising awareness about the Basque Country and rejecting the dictatorship, the bond with the emigrant communities, to which it wanted to give a sense of identity, and aid for the exiles, especially those in France.¹²

The newcomer was also awaited by a reception structure of its own: the Liga de los Amigos de los Vascos and the Comité Pro-Inmigración Vasca organised collective campaigns.¹³

Part of that aid was set in motion by women, and it is the part that has been least told. The Emakume Abertzale Batza (EAB), women’s nationalist organisations born in Euzkadi during the war, had counterparts in Buenos Aires (August 1938), Rosario and Santiago de Chile (October 1939). The women of Rosario devoted themselves above all to raising money for Basque exiles in financial hardship, and they were supported by a middle class of shopkeepers: grocery stores, restaurants, provision shops, cheese shops, florists, clothes shops. They reached a degree of institutionalisation that was exceptional within the world of Spanish women settled in Argentina, with rotating boards, a seal of their own, and regular balance sheets and reports. Until then there had been no women’s bodies formally comparable to those founded by the emigrants, which were dominated by men.¹⁴

The other route was the clergy. Basque priests and members of religious orders purged as “nationalists” after the war ended up posted to the Euskal Echea school in Llavallol, and from there they helped the newly arrived exiles, who entered the country with a stigma manufactured by Francoist propaganda: that of Catholic traitors collaborating with communism.⁶ And a Basque festival held in Tandil in March 1940 gave rise to that town’s Basque centre.⁶