Soldados de Salamina
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:07:07
I'll be back later, okay?
:07:08
I'm in a bit
of a hurry right now.

:07:23
Why don't you read me something?
:07:26
Something of mine
in today's paper?

:07:29
Yes, yes.
:07:32
"It is hard to imagine the years
:07:35
prior to the Civil War. They
say writers used to meet in cafés.

:07:39
That right-wing writers mixed
:07:41
with left-wing ones.
:07:42
But all that changed with the war."
:07:48
What war?
:07:52
"Of all the wartime stories,
that of the poet Antonio Machado

:07:56
is one of the saddest.
On the night

:07:58
of 22nd January 1939,
:08:00
four days before
Franco took Barcelona,

:08:03
Machado and his family set out
for the French border in a convoy.

:08:07
Five days later,
:08:08
under pouring rain,
they crossed

:08:11
the border and left Spain
:08:13
forever.
:08:16
A month later,
Machado died in Collioure.

:08:18
His mother
:08:19
outlived him by 3 days.
In Antonio's

:08:21
pocket, his brother José
found some notes

:08:24
with lines from what was
:08:26
possibly the first verse
of his last poem,

:08:29
'These azure days
and this childhood sun.'

:08:34
His brother the poet Manuel learned
of his death from the foreign press.

:08:38
The two were more than brothers.
:08:40
They were close friends.
:08:42
The 18th July uprising surprised
Manuel in Burgos. He stayed there,

:08:46
a sympathizer of Franco.
:08:50
As soon as he heard of Antonio's
death, he obtained a safe-conduct

:08:54
and crossing a war-torn Spain,
:08:56
went to Collioure.
:08:58
There he was told that his mother
had also died. At the cemetery


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