DAYS OF TERROR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 186, 7 August 1936, Page 5

DAYS OF TERROR.

SPANISH CIVIL WAR. BLOOD-DRENCHED CITIES, j r ! I MADRID AND BARCELONA. I ' i j (By CECIL W. LUSTY.) Ij Crossing the Franco-Spanish border at ,Irun, I motored to Madrid b,y way of I San Sebastian, the Spanish Biarritz, j I Burgos, whose cathedral is one of the' j glories of Spain, Valladolid, where 1 j Columbus was born, and Roman-fortified I Segovia—ali cities and towns now | drenched in blood. The route took me j over the Guadarrama Ranges, where | war-maddened insurgents now await I their opportunity to march on the ' I capital. , I ■ Madrid is a fascinating city of con- '; | trasts. It has in its heart some of the | most modernistic structures in Europe j —reached by cobble-stone bottle-necked j streets. San Geronimo is noted as the I fashionable shopping street; the Gran | Via, the "great white way," for its i towering cinemas and business houses; 1 and the Alcala for its futuristic cafes ! and cabarets. In the tortuous little streets adjacent . to the great square Puerta del Sol , ("Gateway to the Sun") —largely famous \ for having been cleared by Yifle fire ] more often than any other square on , the Continent—are old-fashioned apart- ' merits. No keys are given boarders, j no notice is taken of door knocking, and I had to do as Madrid does, shout for the street nightwatehman; who carries at his girdle the keys for all his round. ' In the newer portions of the city are 1 fine blocks of flats, complete with electric lifts. 1 Madrid is concentrated; the greater ] part of its 1,000.000 people live in ' the city, and the suburban areas to the 1 north, east and south consist largely of wretched hovels, whereat he purifying ' Castilian sun often takes the place of drains. As another contrast, after pass-i 1

' ing the dilapidated, insanitary wineshops, known as those of the Holy Spirit. In the cast you find a modernistic cemetery. Conspicuous is a vivid red church on which is nculpured a greenrobed angel with golden trumpet. In j the west is the vast People's Park, once !. I the Royal Reserve of the Casa de Campo, I and now playground for the masses. I | The Puerta Del Sol is the hub of j 1 I Madrid, and is more animated than the, 1 Plaza Espana at the end of the Gran I . Via. The broadcast chimes of its clock | tower are as dear to the Madrilenes as ! those of Big Ben to Londoners. It is j flanked by cafes in which Madrid loves j' to drink coffee, play dominoes, transact : business and start quarrels. ! The Puerta Del Sol. j Sellers of the State lottery tickets— an indispensable national institution— ' newspaper boys, flower sellers and men- 11 dicants and ever-ready armed police are i borne on the flowing and ebbing tide, j Around Christmas I have seen of turkeys added to the throng on the 1 square. Only during the afternoon j siesta does the Puerta del Sol become [, subdued, only to grow even more lively!, at night time, when, until the early ! J hours, Madrid—refreshed by the siesta— j. makes revelry. i The Government and the municipal | authority, at the time of my visit to ; 1 Madrid, had ambitious plans for making;! Madrid a fitting republican capital for j the new Hispanic empire. The Spaniard, fonder of conviviality and social life than business, and cursed with "111 - , nana," or procrastination, is a dreamer' 1 and a visionary. Thus it is. when he ' 1 swallows too heady a draught of intoxi- 1 1 eating ideals and rose-coloured visions, j he falls prey to his passionate, impul- i she. unreasoning instincts, The plans ; included the rebuilding of the Grand Opera House, the completion of the University City that was ex-Kin" Alfonso's jubilee mouument, and an j electric railway to the Sierra Guadar- ! rama. j Now Madrid is in danger of being j destroyed 1 he Puerta del Sol echoes to marching loyalists, the sanctuary of the Church is 110 more, the bereaved demand revenge in blood, and twentieth century | Madrid has overnight, as it were, slipped | back into -the vears. Days of. joyous life and colour have become days j; of terror. i 1

If Madrid fears the shadow of destruction, Barcelona, pride of the Catalans, finest city in all Spain, has, according to the cable news, suffered most, and known, indeed, another St. Bartholomew's. My recollections of Barcelona ! are vivid, pleasant ones —of a seemingly gay-liearted city, of long palm-fringed I boulevards basked in sunshine, of in- [ cense burning, altars aod white-robed J choir boys in cathedrals of splendour. Cameos of Barcelona. I I think of days spent on the Plaza Cataluna, watching the old and young of Barcelona joining hands, and, to the strains of a rather. musical-comedy-like brass band in gay uniforms, dancing the sardana. I tlrnk of the Ramblas, five roads in one, that march down to the blue Mediterranean, of the symphony of colour of flower stalls, -outside the Rambias opera houses. I think of the Paseo de Gracia and of traffic suspended while laughing youths and maidens in decorated vehicles, celebrating fiestas, distributed flowers and sweets to the populace. I think of vis ! ts to Tibidabo, the wooded mountain' overlooking the city, and to Montjuieh, the elevated exhibition grounds, with their illuminated fountains. I think of tak : n« the elevator to the top of the Columbus meijiorial by the harbour and gazing through the coloured tower windows over a massive city of church spires, roof-garden lionies, lofty buildings and smokeless factories. In the cable news T read of the Plaza Cataluna strewn with the dead, of executions of suspects by women death squads on Tibidabo, of cathedrals destroyed by shell :md brand, of priests and nuns subjected to horrible deaths, ;of brutal fiarhting along the Paseo de : Colon—another great boulevard that runs into the Ramblas —and of a Barcelona reduced to a shastly shombles. And. worst still, tlv days and nights of j terror are not ended.