6. Social and Literary Engagement: Ruth Rewald and the Children of the Spanish Civil War

Lena Hein

Given our research interest, it is important to name and bear in mind the locations of the forgotten texts, neglected names, and untold stories discussed here. The source for this chapter is the Federal Archive of Germany and, more concretely, the collection SAPMO, containing the “Archives of the Political Parties and Mass Organizations of the GDR,” which includes the folder titled “Civil War in Spain.”[1] One of the many folders in this collection contains the mostly unpublished works and private documents of Ruth Rewald that are discussed in this chapter.

Life and Work of Ruth Rewald[2]

Rewald was born in 1906 in Berlin to a non-religious Jewish family. She began studying law in Heidelberg, where she met her future husband, Hans Schaul. Rewald then decided to dedicate herself to youth welfare and began working as a nursery assistant at a daycare in Prenzlauer Berg in Berlin in 1930, gaining practical experience and collecting theoretical material for her frst children’s books and texts. In 1933, the couple emigrated to Paris due to the growing antisemitic sentiment in Germany: Hans Schaul was banned from his occupation as a lawyer, and Rewald was not allowed to publish anymore. In Paris, Schaul worked as a photographer, while Rewald took over a share of a bookshop, translated, gave lessons, and worked in administration. When they heard of the Spanish Civil War, Hans Schaul left immediately for Spain in September 1936 with the International Brigades, where he would serve in the 13th brigade in the Tschapajew Battalion. Their daughter, Anja, was born in May 1937, but Rewald decided to join the International Brigades in Spain, leaving her daughter with a close friend in Paris. Heiner Rau helped her obtain an invitation from the 11th brigade to live and work in the children’s home “Ernst Thälmann” in La Moraleja, outside of Madrid, so that she could also conduct research for her children’s book on the Spanish Civil War.

Thanks to their letters in the archive, we know that Schaul and Rewald were constantly writing letters to each other, but it seems that they did not meet more than a few times, although they were both in Spain. In February 1938, Rewald returned to Paris, where she started writing Vier spanische Jungen despite her fnancial problems and the generally difcult political circumstances. After the German occupation of France, Rewald fed with her young daughter to the small village Les Roisiers-sur-Loire. But on July 17, 1942, the German-Jewish author was arrested, brought to the prison of Angers, and then sent to Auschwitz and killed. A neighbor in the French village took in her daughter Anja, but after two years, she sufered the same fate as her mother. Hans Schaul was imprisoned in the French internment camp Djelfa in Algeria in 1941. He later managed to enter the Soviet Union and then the GDR, where he worked for the SED until his death in 1988.[3]

A brief account of what happened to Rewald’s texts and documents will clarify why this is an untold story. After her arrest, her belongings and documents were sent to the Reichssicherheitshauptamt in Berlin, where all antiJewish activities were organized by the Gestapo. At the end of World War II, Soviet soldiers entered this building and took many fles and documents with them to the Soviet Union, among them the box containing all of Rewald’s belongings. Until 1960 these documents were returned gradually to the GDR, specifcally to the Zentrale Staatsarchiv in Potsdam.

In the 1980s, the literary scholar Silvia Schlenstedt found the fle with Rewald’s documents while conducting research and informed Hans Schaul, who previously had not been aware of the existence of these documents. In 1989, Dirk Krüger wrote a dissertation about Ruth Rewald, bringing her back from the oblivion caused by her exile and assassination, even though she had published several children’s books in her time. Her name appeared in a few articles and in some of those books on the market, but Ruth Rewald is otherwise mostly forgotten. Her life is representative of the time she lived in. It is a German-Jewish historical experience, a life of exile and of political engagement.

Despite her short lifetime, Rewald published several children’s and youth’s books; Rudi und sein Radio was the frst one, in 1931. Subsequently, several of her short stories appeared in diferent papers in 1932, the same year her successful book Müllerstraße—Jungens von heute was published by Gundert Verlag in Stuttgart. While the frst book thematizes new media, the radio, and airplanes, this one is a proletarian story based on her experiences in the daycare in Berlin. Janko—der Junge aus Mexiko was released in 1934 while Rewald was in exile in Paris, focusing on the topic of statelessness and exile, and in 1936, she published Tsao und Jing-Ling in a Swiss journal. This work was not published as a book until 2002. The text to be discussed in this chapter, Vier spanische Jungen (Four Spanish boys), was written right after her time in Spain but frst published in 1987 by Dirk Krüger, who also stresses in his epilogue that Ruth Rewald placed more emphasis on social and political issues with each successive book or text.[4] Mathilde Lévêque uses the term “shadow literature” (littérature de l’ombre) for authors like Rewald whose work is almost forgotten until it emerges fortuitously during transfer between archives or similar moves.[5] Many of these authors faded into oblivion during this time, because they disappeared in the camps—and with them vanished their texts.

Vier spanische Jungen and Its Intertextual Relations With Other Writings of Rewald

Along with Die Kinder von Guernika (1939) by Jewish author Hermann Kestens,[6] Ruth Rewald’s novel Vier spanische Jungen is apparently the only children’s or youth’s book about the Spanish Civil War in German. In Spain, the genre of children’s literature on the Spanish Civil War became more prominent after the Transition in 1977 and especially after 2000. Evidence for this is found in the two sessions dedicated to the civil war in the “III. Congreso Internacional de la Asociación de Literatura Infantil y Juvenil” in Vigo in 2003. According to José Belmonte, among the most cited authors are Bernardo Atxaga, Jesús Ballaz, Jaume Cela, Juan Farias y José María Merino, Emili Teixidor, Elena Fortun, José Luis Castillo-Puche, Juan Farias, Antonio Martínez Menchén, Fernando Marías, and Vicente Muñoz Puelles.[7] Isabelle Gräfn Deym furthermore stresses the function of children’s literature of the Spanish Civil War as a space of both memory and counter-memory.[8] Nevertheless, the dominant argument in scholarly literature is that children’s books on the civil war are not concretely political but also ofer a social analysis of the children’s lives and experiences during the war. This chapter examines how Ruth Rewald’s writing for children contains a political dimension, regarding both historical events and their remembrance.

Vier spanische Jungen

After the frst chapter, which functions as prolepsis about a group of soldiers in the Ejército Popular during the frst winter of the civil war, Rewald’s Vier spanische Jungen begins on the eve of the military coup in July 1936 in the small, rural, rather poor village Peñarroya. The readership gets to know the four main characters and friends who are between eleven and fourteen years old: the funny rascal Jerónimo, the delicate dreamer José, the small and good-natured Rodríguez, and Álvarez, self-confdent and very mature for his twelve years. The text also explains the socio-historical circumstances of the year before, the families of the children, the political situation for the miners, and the children’s work in a coalmine. One day, the four friends spot troops heading toward the town and inform their parents about it. Fidel, Álvarez’s father, organizes a successful defense against the military rebels, almost without weapons. The left coalition achieved certain advancements after their election in 1936, so the town now enjoys a period of happiness, motivation, and improvement. These conditions particularly beneftted the children who now have the possibility to go to school instead of collecting coal, because their parents are earning enough money. A new school is built, and we read a general description of the new teacher’s pedagogy and how the children organize themselves in elected groups to keep their garden and facilities clean and functioning.

But after a short time, the war in the country also reaches Peñarroya. With the Francoist army getting closer, many men of the Republican and antifascist families fee into the mountains to join las milicias, among them also Fidel, Sánchez, and Molero, Álvarez’s, Jose’s, and Rodríguez fathers. When the fascist troops occupy the village, violence, hunger, and fear begin to reign over the lives of the inhabitants, including the four protagonists. The novel also explores the issue of communication and information during the war. They bring a secret radio to Rodrigo’s uncle, who lives in a small and disregarded village close by in order to receive information from Republican radio stations in occupied areas. The situation in Peñarroya worsens, and the four friends go back to collecting coal pieces despite the prohibition so that they can support their families. Inspired by a story of three children who fed from Málaga, the protagonists decide one day to run over to the Republican army. In the last chapter, the narrator’s perspective switches to the Battalion Tschapajew of the International Brigades that fnds the four boys, who think they have been caught by fascist soldiers. But the novel ends well as the battalion happily takes them in, recognizes them as the children of some of the militia men, and promises them to be brought up in a children’s home with food and schooling.

Genesis of the Novel

Rewald fnished the manuscript in October 1938 after her return from Spain, but like many other manuscripts of that time, Vier spanische Jungen ended up in the literary drawer of exile and was not published until Dirk Krüger’s edition from 1987. The historical material for the plot consists in the story of four boys feeing from their hometown under Francoist occupation to the Battalion Tschapajew of the International Brigades in spring of 1937. Hans Schaul, member of this battalion, told Rewald about the event and took pictures of the children. His companion Alfred Kantorowicz wrote the story down as it happened,[9] but, together with Heinrich Rau, they wanted Rewald to write a children’s book about it. In this letter from July 19, 1937, Schaul refers to this book project in the following way:

Denn was muss dieses projektierte Buch enthalten? Erstens eine ziemlich genaue Schilderung des Leben im faschistischen Hinterland. Das ist nicht der schwerste Teil, denn darin sind die spanischen Faschisten keineswegs originell. Aber es gibt doch viele Einzelheiten, die spezifsch sind, wie sehen die Haeuser aus, wie sehen faschistische Soldaten aus, wie sprechen sie untereinander. Ferner sind fuer Dich einige militaerische Kenntnisse notwendig, keine konkreten, aber immerhin allgemeiner Art. Denn ich glaube Dir geschrieben zu haben, dass die zu uns uebergelaufenen Jungens uns wichtige Angaben machen konnten und dieser Punkt waere fuer das Buch doch sehr wichtig. Ferner weißt du ja, dass die Jungens zu uns herueberkamen, weil ihre Vaeter auf unserer Seite kaempfen. Es muss also auch eine gute konkrete Schilderung erstens des Lebens unserer Soldaten, ihres Geistes und ihrer Moral mit dasein. . . . Und schließlich muss auch das Leben der Soldaten der

Internationalen Brigade richtig geschildert werden, womit wiederum eine Fuelle von Einzelkenntnissen verbunden waeren. Kurz, wie soll ich das briefich alles behandeln, es ist doch fast ausgeschlossen.[10]

Children’s Life Stories

As previously mentioned, Rewald started working a few months later in the children’s home (Kinderheim) “Ernst Thälmann” in La Moraleja, outside of Madrid. The building where the eleventh International Brigade founded this home used to be the country estate of María de Cubas, who fed at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. It hosted both war orphans and children whose parents were fghting and/or working and could not provide for them, mainly from the northern part of Madrid. In the home, a teacher from Frente Popular taught classes, and the comrades Concha und Bernhard took care of the rest of their needs. In a short speech during her arrival, Rewald asked the children living in the Kinderheim to tell her about their lives, families, and recent experiences so that people in other countries could learn about their situation.

Many aspects of these children’s stories, which are also among Rewald’s documents in the archive, served as raw material for her novel. But this chapter intends to show that they were not just a source of material for her fctional writing and that Vier spanische Jungen is not just a future-oriented propagandist text defending a certain message and the values of the International Brigades. It is not until the last chapter that the text adopts the perspective of the International Brigades, of Schaul and Kantorowicz, and how they experienced these real events. The novel remembers and recounts the stories and fates of those children from the Kinderheim while also telling the story of its four protagonists. The text becomes a space of memory and simultaneously discusses the fate of children generally during the Spanish Civil War. The text demonstrates a move toward the past, to the historical memory of voices that are usually unheard. At the same time, it looks to the future with a certain message and aims to inform the world about the ongoing civil war.

Rewald’s writing on the children’s personal stories shows her intention to remember them as individuals: she always includes their full names and sometimes also their age. Her transcription in German of their Spanish words— sometimes with the help of Concha—attempts to maintain their voices and language even through translated and transcribed language. As Krüger points out, she also let the children write and draw parts of their lives and then listened to their words, converting them into little life stories.[11]

A reading of the fctional novel Vier spanische Jungen with these unpublished texts by Rewald, which give voice to many children of the Spanish Civil War, provides an opportunity to refect on the web of memories, historical-political representation, and fction that are characteristic of Rewald’s writing.

There are many children’s stories containing harsh life experiences, like the one told by twelve-year-old Jesús Morata:

9 Geschwister. Vater arbeitslos vor dem Krieg. Ich habe immer viel gearbeitet. Damals also 10 Jahre alt. Kohlenreste (Carbonillas suchen, ein Kindergewerbe in Madrid, auch vor dem Krieg). Morgens um 8 in die Naehe der Fabrik gegangen. Kohlenreste. Bis Mittags. Von 1/2 bis Abend, bis der Sack voll war. auch wenn schon nachts. Nicht zum Verkaufen wie andere Kinder, fuer sie zu Hause. ‘Nicht richtig, dass die anderen das so teuer verkaufen’. Mit einem Sieb den Kohlenstaub geschuettelt, bleiben kleine Stueckchen zurueck. Als der Krieg ausbrach, Vater bei Park Automobile gearbeitet, Mutter und Bruder in anderen Kriegsbetrieben. Jesus blieb mit zwei kleineren Geschwistern und einem aelteren Bruder allein zu Hause. Weiter Kohlen gesucht. Immer am selben Ort. Der lag jetzt nur einige 100 Meter von der Front. . . . Seine Mutter gehoert von Moraleja, wollte erst nicht. Aber zwei Bomben in seinem Haus innen eingeschlagen und nichts zu essen. Schliesslich doch ja.[12]

This text teaches the reader about child labor before and, more signifcantly, during the war in depicting these families’ hardship. The work with coal is an omnipresent element both in the children’s life stories and in Rewald’s novel, as can be seen in the following paragraph describing the life of the four protagonists before the war:

Jeder schleppte einen prallen Sack. Der schmale, zarte José trug ihn auf dem Rücken und ging gebeugt unter der Last. Der stämmige Rodriguez, der älteste von allen, hatte ihn über die rechte Schulter gelegt. . . . Sie hatten, wie jeden Tag, Kohlenrückstände auf der Alina-Grube gehackt und gesammelt.[13]

Another recurrent topic in the novel and in many of the children’s narrations is violence and repression. Listening to their voices also means understanding the level of violence and death they were exposed to. The story of thirteenyear-old Maria Antonia, recorded by Ruth Rewald, provides a stark example of this reality:

Ich war eines Tages zu Hause mit meiner Mutter [und] einer meiner Brueder. Da klopfte es an die Tuer. Und es waren drei Faschisten, die kamen, um meinen Bruder zu holen. . . . Und als er herausgegangen war, hat man ihm, ohne ein Wort zu sagen, mit dem Stock auf den Kopf geschlagen. Als mein Bruder schrie, ist auch meine Mutter hinausgegangen. Und man hat ihr auch einen Schlag auf den Kopf gegeben. Und da sie zu dritt waren, hat der dritte meinem Bruder einen Stich in die Seite gegeben. Und nachdem sie das gemacht hatten, sagte einer von ihnen: Jetzt koennen

wir gehen, die Sache ist erledigt. Diese Verbrecher hatten die Stoecke mit Papier umwickelt und an der Spitze hatten sie eine Bleikugel befestigt. Das ist eine Geschichte, die ich niemals in meinem Leben vergessen werde.[14]

The shocking combination of a child’s voice or text and violent content is also found in Rewald’s Vier spanische Jungen, which combines these two features and often directly comments on death. For example, the narrator depicts Francoist repression in the following excerpt:

Am nächsten Tag ging es von Mund zu Mund: ‘Hast du die Schüsse gehört in der letzten Nacht? Sie haben die Gefangenen in den Kasernen erschossen.’ . . . Auch die nächsten Tage erlebten die Menschen von Penarroya in lähmender Angst. Hunderte wurden erschossen, viele gequält und geschlagen, damit sie ihre Freunde verraten sollten.[15]

It seems to be a clear narrative decision to represent violence and death in this book for children and youth. The readership of this novel likely understood these themes, as the protagonists and the children of the Kinderheim experienced situations that often forced them to act as adults.

Reports

In addition to the life stories of children living in the Thälmann Kinderheim, there are other types of texts among Ruth Rewald’s unpublished works in the archive. After her frequent exploratory missions or trips to diferent parts of Madrid, she wrote these experiences down, creating a substantial catalogue of reports on a variety of topics. In general, they focus on workingclass neighborhoods, children, and women during war and related topics. Most of them even have proper titles, which reveal Rewald’s intention of actually publishing them. Some examples include “Metroendstation Madrid: Tetuan,” describing one of the most afected parts of Madrid in the civil war, the working-class neighborhood Tetuán; “Der Krieg beherrscht das Denken und Fuehlen der Kinder”; “Das Leben einer spanischen Familie buergerlicher Herkunft waehrend des Buergerkrieges oder wie die Revolution aus einer in‚ Geist und Kultur schwelgenden Intellektuellenfamilie revolutionaere Kaempfer macht”; “Casa Cuna,” about another children’s home; or “Das Unterirdische Madrid,” about how people hid from bombings and lived in metro stations like the one in Tetuan. These reports or articles demonstrate Rewald’s precise capacity of observation, and they aim to awaken solidarity with the Spanish children and working-class families. The clear mode of expression and the narrative structure show Rewald’s profciency in writing short-form literature.

As in the children’s testimonies, there are also intertextual relations between these reports and her novel Vier spanische Jungen. A reading of two examples from these reports gives an impression of the texts themselves, their writing style, and Rewald’s refection upon and transformation of this information into a fctional children’s book.

“Vor der Bruecke von Toledo”

The frst example is a fragment of her report “Vor der Bruecke von Toledo,” in which she describes how she traveled to the fnal metro station in the south to see the situation in that part of the city.

Hier, dicht vor der Front wird noch gearbeitet. Dunkle Schutthuegel umgeben das Fabrikgebaeude, und darinnen kriecht und wimmelt es wie in einem Ameisenhaufen. . . . Ich komme neugierig naeher und fnde eine ungezaehlte Bande Kinder. In allen Alterklassen. Von 6 bis 14 Jahren. Sie sind hier von morgens bis mittags und des nachmittags bis es dunkel wird, um zu arbeiten. Sie versuchen, aus den Schutthaufen der Gasfabrik so viele verbrennbare kleinste Stueckchen Kohle abzuringen, wie moeglich. . . . Ich frage sie nun alles moegliche. Ob sie fuer sich arbeiten oder zum Verkauf, wo sie wohnen usw. Die Aelteren hoeren auf zu arbeiten und stuetzen sich auf ihre Schaufeln, die Kleinen kommen neugierig angelaufen und staunen mich an. Schliesslich entlaedt sich alles in einem prustenden Gelaechter. Da kommt mir erst zu Bewusstsein, dass diesen Kindern mein aeusserst vereinfachtes und krankes Spanisch wirklich Spanisch vorkommen muss. (Die Kinder des Heims sind so gewohnt mit Internationalen zu sprechen, dass sie schon selbst ihre Muttersprache vereinfachen, um sich den Auslaendern verstaendlich zu machen). Ich erklaere nun, dass ich Deutsche bin und darum so komisch spreche. ‘Deutsche?’ Alle Kinder ziehen sich hoechst misstrauisch vor mir zurueck. ‘Deutsche sind alle Faschisten.’ Und sie legen den Hand um den Hals, um zu zeigen, so murkst ihr uns ab. Ich erzaehle ihnen, dass laengst nicht alle Deutschen Faschisten sind, dass sogar viele von ihnen nach Spanien gekommen sind und—gegen die Faschisten zu kaempfen, und dass ich auch zu diesen Antifaschisten gehoere. . . . Diese Kinder wohnen nach wie vor in ihren alten Wohnungen. Ihre Haeuser sind fast alle durch Bombardements beschaedigt. . . . Sie sind alle aus der naechsten Naehe und leben seit mehr als einem Jahr ganz dicht hinter der Front. Die meisten sammeln die Kohlen fuer sich, damit die Mutter kochen kann, und damit sie es etwas warm haben. Sie gehen nicht eher vom Platz, als bis der Sack voll ist, und darueber wird es oft dunkel. Die anderen verkaufen die Kohle. 60 Céntimos fuer 1 Kilo. Es ist kalt und feucht. Die Kinder haben alle nur leichte Kleider und keine Struempfe an und bei manchen von ihnen ist die Haut am Gesicht so blass und gespannt wie Pergament, dass ich an Greisengesichter denken muss. . . . Sie haben Hunger, die Kinder von Madrid.[16]

This text between report, essay, and diary—a combination of reality and storytelling—again ofers a voice to those usually left unheard: working-class children at the outskirts of Madrid during the civil war. The theme of “hunger” is omnipresent in this text and in Rewald’s novel. The topic is mentioned repeatedly, as seen in the following example referring to the time when Peñarroya was already beneath Francoist occupation:

Mutter Molero saß auf dem Stuhl. Sie bewegte sich nicht. Nur ab und zu rollte eine Träne über ihr Gesicht. In den letzten Tagen hatte sie kaum etwas gegessen. Die dünne Garbanzensuppe mußten die Kinder haben.[17]

While the mother is providing for the nutrition of her children here, both in the quoted report and in the novel, the children also take over responsibility for their families by collecting and selling coals, as in the following scene:

In diesem Jahr gab es viele Familien, die die Hitze schlechter als im vergangenen ertrugen. Sorgen und Hunger hatten sie geschwächt. Besonders traurig sah es bei Mutter Molero aus. Sie hatte einige Zeit lang Soldatenwäsche gewaschen. Diese schwere Arbeit neben der unablässigen Sorge um ihre sieben Sprößlinge hatte sie so elend gemacht, daß sie das Waschen aufgeben mußte. Auch Perez’ Schlächterei ging zurück. Die meisten Bewohner der Straße hatten nicht mehr das Geld, Fleisch zu kaufen wie früher. So gingen die Kinder trotz des Verbotes und trotz der Strafe, die ihnen angedroht war, wieder in die Halden, um Carbonillas zu suchen.[18]

Another key aspect in “Puente de Toledo” is the children’s awareness of German participation in the Spanish Civil War on the nationalist’s side, evident in their immediate mistrust toward Rewald when she tells them her nationality. The references in Rewald’s book to German and Italian intervention in the Spanish Civil War are therefore not just an ideological decision for informing about these countries’ involvement, but they also represent the contemporary reality. From her experiences and conversations with Spanish children during the war, she deduced that they were very much aware of this aspect of the confict. The novel expresses this awareness in scenes like the following, where the protagonists observe the fascist airfeld close by, recognizing the diferent airplanes: “‘Das sind Caproni’, sagte Álvarez. ‘I wo’, rief Jeronimo, ‘sie sind doch schwarz und nicht weiß wie die Caproni. Junkers, schwere Bomber sind das.’”[19]

“Die Wandlung der spanischen Frau”

The second report considered here is “Die Wandlung der spanischen Frau.” Women, and working-class women in particular, form the second group of people to whom Ruth Rewald is interested in giving a voice. She does this by approaching them during her trips to Madrid, writing about them in her subsequent reports, and representing their lives in her fctional children’s book. In the following report, she describes her visits to diferent centers or places where women met and organized during the war while also refecting on structural issues concerning the role and position of women in Spanish society.

In Madrid lerne ich eine junge spanische Frau kennen. Sie ist klein und schmal, erst 23 Jahre als, aber mit dem groessten Ernst und voelliger Selbstaufopferung gibt sie ihre ganze Kraft der Erziehung und Aufklaerung der spanischen Frau. Und das ist eine immense Aufgabe. Denn bis zum Jahre—sind die Frauen in einer fuer uns andere Europaeerinnen unvorstellbaren Rueckstaendigkeit gehalten worden. 60 Prozent in manchen Gegenden—waren Analphabeten und sind es zum großen Teil auch noch. Sie wurden selbst von ihren eigenen Maennern fuer so inferiore Wesen angesehen, dass man ihnen nichts zutraute als Kinder gebaeren und Kinder grossziehen. Selbst auf dem Lande, ließ man sie in den seltensten Faellen an der Bodenbearbeitung teilnehmen. Sie wurden fast wie Haustiere behandelt. Und diese jahrhundertlange Einschaetzung und Behandlung hat ihren Horizont und ihre Selbsteinschaetzung in solchem Maße verringert, dass sie sich selbst weder etwas zutraut noch auch Lust verspuert, etwas zu leisten. . . . Meine Freundin Julia organisiert Vortraege bei den Frauen der Arbeiter Madrids—auch dort muessen sie aus ihrer Lethargie gerissen werden, bei den Baeuerinnen auf dem Lande, sie organisiert Meetings, sie gruendet Schulen, sie hilft bei der Schafung von Kriegsbetrieben. Voller Stolz erbietet sie sich, mir einiges von dem zu zeigen, was seit dem Juli 36 geschafen worden ist. . . . Aber in den großen Staedten hat die Wandlung bereits energisch eingesetzt.[20]

Motherhood and education are deeply intertwined with the role of women in society. Rewald does not shy from exploring this issue. This is evident both in her reports, which, like newspaper articles, seem to be written with adult readers in mind and in her novel directed to children. In the following quote from the novel Vier spanische Jungen, one sees her intersectional approach concerning class and gender when she talks about the schooling system before the reforms of the Second Republic and Frente Popular:

Viele der Knaben mußten arbeiten und konnten fast gar nicht in die Schule kommen. Andere mußten plötzlich zu Haus bleiben und helfen, wenn Vater oder Mutter krank waren. Wenn sie dann nach Wochen oder Monaten wieder in der Klasse auftauchten, hatten sie das meiste vergessen und mußten wieder von vorn beginnen. Den Mädchen erging es noch schlimmer. Daheim fand man es häufg unnötig, daß sie überhaupt lesen und schreiben lernten. Wurden sie etwas größer, dann mußten sie die kleineren Geschwister hüten und der Mutter helfen.[21]

Both in her report and in her novel, Rewald does not just criticize existing structures, but she also remembers the outstanding courage and behavior of certain women. The fctional character of Josepha, Alvarez’s mother, can be read as homage to people like Julia or Concha from the children’s home. Take, for example, the following passage in which Josepha recalls her own political past in Asturias, where she spent time in jail and actively participated in the political organization of women:

Ich hatte damals auch meine beiden kleinen Gören, aber ich war fest entschlossen, einmal etwas zu wagen, eben damit es die Kleinen später besser haben sollten. Und ich sprach mit den Frauen in der Grube. Als ich einen kleinen Stamm sicher gewonnen hatte, machten wir Frauenversammlungen. Das war damals nicht so einfach, denn Versammlungen waren verboten. Aber wir kamen trotzdem zusammen. . . . Und es wurde gestreikt.[22]

On the one hand, the text has a universal dimension regarding values like the people’s bravery. On the other hand, it refers to a concrete historical experience, evident in references to real historical events, which can be called the “historical markers” of the text. Whereas many other children’s books concentrate merely on children’s experiences, in Vier spanische Jungen, Rewald consistently mentions and explores current historical and political circumstances. At the beginning of the text, someone comments on information in the newspaper, stating: “Morgen soll doch in Barcelona diese Olympiade, wie nennen sie die, Arbeiterolympiade, stattfnden. Was da jetzt nicht alles möglich ist bei dieser neuen Regierung.”[23] Even though the conversation takes place between adults, the child readers receive the information about this important event. At the same time, the sentence marks the exact date of the story, as the “Worker’s Olympics” should have started on July 19, 1936, a day after the military coup. This reference locates the story exactly on this decisive and tragic day.

Later, when the military coup leads the frst Francoist troops to Peñarroya, Rewald’s novel goes beyond exploring the fear and pain the children could feel and understand in this situation. The text also explains the events on a political and historical level:

Von ihm erfuhr man, daß es sich um einen seit langem vorbereiteten Militäraufstand in ganz Spanien handelte. Man wollte die Regierung des Volkes, die sich nach dem freien Willen des Volkes gebildet und diesem Volk neue Rechte, größere Freiheit und mehr Brot gewährt hatte, stürzen. So wie hier in Peñarroya, so tobte in vielen Städten Spaniens der Kampf. . . . Spanien war in zwei Teile gespalten.[24]

On a narrative level, this explanation functions as a reading guide, suggesting that the happenings in Peñarroya are representative of the historical events all over Spain at that time. The story of our four protagonists in the little town—accessible and understandable for children and adolescents—thus ofers a broader perspective on the events of the Spanish Civil War throughout the country.

One narrative strategy throughout the novel is an attempt to explain certain politics through their visible and comprehensible efects on society. This is evident in the following defnition of a fascist:

Ein Faschist, das war der Schloßherr, dem seit Jahrhunderten Landstrecken gehörten, auf denen Hunderte von Bauern ihre kleine Wirtschaft hätten betreiben können, der Schloßherr, der sich selbst um seinen Besitz nicht kümmerte, der hier und dort Verwalter einsetzte, die Bauern zwangen für einen geringen Lohn von Sonnenaufgang bis Sonnenuntergang den Boden zu bearbeiten. . . . Faschist, das war der Grundherr, der sich in Madrid mit den Bankherren und den Generalen verband, um jeden Widerstand der Bauern gegen diese Unterdrückung zu ersticken.[25]

The anaphorical syntactical construction regarding “the fascist” underlines an aspect of class that is, even today, often left out of debates on the historical memory of the Spanish Civil War, a confict that is falsely referred to as a “war between brothers.” The genre of children’s literature does not change Rewald’s eforts to write a political, social, and also adventurous novel.

Literary Devices

Ruth Rewald designed a plot that is full of suspense, clear, and understandable for young readers. Its language is rich in form and imagery, inspiring thoughtfulness, insight, and emotional reception.

A closer look at some of its narrative devices illustrates this literary quality of the text. Although Vier Spanische Jungen is a children’s book, it also recounts the lived experiences of many diferent adults, ofering the reader a multiperspectival and polyphonic panorama. The paratextual or formal structuration of the text in twenty chapters both divides the plot into smaller units and has its own narrative function. In many cases, the beginning of a new chapter comes with a change of narrative perspective. This chapter division is also used to formalize a temporal switch through analepses or prolepses.

One chapter opens by showing a drastic stylistic change, expressing the sudden deterioration of the situation in Peñarroya on a formal level and through a change in perspective. The stories move from the four protagonist’s experience to a description of the general situation in the town:

Die Kinder wagten nicht mehr, in die Kohlenhalden zu gehen. —18.— Sechs Uhr früh. Die Erde bebte. Die Fensterscheiben klirrten. Penarroya fuhr jäh aus dem Schlaf. Bum, bum, bum. Granateneinschläge. Die Menschen sprangen aus ihren Betten. Kinder weinten. Krieg.[26]

The sudden and unique use of an elliptic style foregrounds this description of the direct sensorial experience of the war. Its onomatopoetic representation, coupled with elliptic and paratactical syntax, expresses the drastic reality of war in people’s lives. The text lifts up voices that typically go unheard. It establishes respect for the voice of the child as witness and testimony of the war, for his or her perception of the world.

En esta visión de un conficto armado de tales dimensiones, en el que se vio involucrada toda la población española, se echa en falta la particular óptica, tan distinta, tan relevante, de tanta trascendencia, de esos niños y jóvenes que, a la par que los adultos, también vivieron la guerra en primera línea, desde la vanguardia, o bien desde el exilio o el confnamiento en sus casas, en sus pueblos.[27]

In Rewald’s novel, complex political and historical content is explained to a potentially young readership using fction and certain narrative devices. In the following quote, for instance, the results of new politics following the 1936 elections are evident through an aspect of the children’s daily life:

José sprang aufgeregt aus seinem schmalen Bett, das er mit seinem jüngeren Bruder teilte. ‘Aufstehen, Gabriel, die Schule beginnt!’ Gabriel blinzelte, reckte sich und rollte auf die andere Seite. ‘Laß mich in Ruh’, murmelte er und schlief weiter. Aber José war ganz glücklich darüber, daß heute wieder die Schule begann. Er schlüpfte rasch in seine Hosen, blätterte in dem neuen Schulbuch, das gestern an alle Schulkinder der Stadt verteilt worden war. Dann lief er zu dem Eimer mit Wasser und wusch sich. Als er damit fertig war, stellte er mit Befriedigung fest, daß das Wasser kristallklar war im Vergleich zu der chinesischen Tusche, die er zurückließ, wenn er vom Kohlenschaufeln heimgekehrt war.[28]

These few sentences contain a wealth of social and political information: The children’s diferent reactions show their generational diferences concerning these historical experiences, ofering a more diferentiated and precise perspective on what is normally generalized as “the children of the Spanish Civil War.” Gabriel only knows or remembers the happier times, with normal schooling and without having to work. The cursory mention of the small and shared bed marks social class, and the comparison of the morning washing subtly introduces the earlier social circumstances of José’s everyday life.

Conclusion: A Novel Between Political Commitment and Memory

Although Rewald’s writing should not be characterized as mere promotion of her political ideas, there is certainly a didactic impulse in her novel. But instead of representing socio-political wishful thinking, the text instead shows the historical reality and the scope of action of each individual and the collective. The text represents Rewald’s observations of Spanish society concerning the role of children in historical events like the Spanish Civil War. Their active, creative, and constructive intervention in reality often confronts them with injustice, cruelty, and hostility. At the same time, their role sets examples and encourages imitation, a characteristic of the text that shows a clear message and a didactic impulse.

Nevertheless, the novel and its implications are not limited to this didactic and propagandist element. The representation of children and the daily life of common people during the Spanish Civil War inscribes these often unheard and untold experiences into the historical memory of the war. Children’s literature serves here as a space for historical memory. In this sense, Vier spanische Jungen remembers the historical experiences of the children from the Thälmann Kinderheim as well as the ones of the people described in the report.

In the time after the Spanish Civil War during the dictatorship, the text would have functioned as a space of counter-memory to the Francoist ofcial historical discourse if it had gotten the chance to be published. Rewald’s novel also reminds us of the need to remember the generation and perspectives of young people during the Spanish Civil War; the literature and authors capturing the experiences of this generation have often remained in the shadows of history. Tabea Alexa Linhard ofers another perspective on Rewald’s novel Vier spanische Jungen by analyzing its Jewish facets. Even though there are no direct references to Jewishness or antisemitism in the novel, Linhard emphasizes Rewald’s search for poetic justice and claims that the novel is an example of Jewish writing from the Spanish Civil War, as “the novel provides a window into what fghting fascism in Spain meant for exiled Jewish writers, among them Rewald.”[29] Without confning her work to one category, we can therefore also locate Rewald’s novel in the large and fuid context of Jewish literatures.[30]

Today, Ruth Rewald’s children’s books can be bought, but she is still largely unknown and seldom mentioned in any research papers. Dirk Krüger is the only scholar who wrote a monograph on her (his dissertation in the late 1980s). Nevertheless, there has been some progress, such as the translation and re-editing of some of Rewald’s texts.[31] The only visible memorials to her in public space are the primary school in Les Resoirs, France, which was named after her daughter, Anja Schaul, and a commemorative plaque at her house in the same village, markers remembering Rewald’s literary heritage and the village’s history from 1933 to 1945.

By telling this untold story, this chapter has shown that Ruth Rewald’s Vier spanische Jungen is not only a didactic and propagandist text oriented toward the future but also a space of historical memory for unheard voices and untold experiences of the Spanish Civil War. The intertextual references to Rewald’s reports and the life stories of the children from the Thälmann Kinderheim shape a novel that combines both adventure and political and ideological implications, a testimony of the Spanish Civil War.

Bibliography

Belmonte, José. “El peso y la sombra de la Guerra Civil española en la narrativa para jóvenes.” Ocnos 9 (2013): 121–39.

Bundesarchiv Lichterfelde. Nachlass Ruth Rewald-Schaul: BArch, N 2235 (Ruth Rewald-Schaul).

Gräfn Deym, Isabelle. “La memoria de la guerra civil española en la literatura infantil y juvenil.” Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca Stud. hist., H.a cont. 25 (2007): 181–90.

Krüger, Dirk. “Nachwort.” In Vier spanische Jungen: Herausgegeben und mit einem Nachwort von Dirk Krüger, edited by Ruth Rewald, 160–90. Cologne: Röderberg, 1987.

Krüger, Dirk. Die deutsch-jüdische Kinder- und Jugendbuchautorin Ruth Rewald und die Kinder- und Jugendliteratur im Exil. Frankfurt am Main: dipa-Verlag, 1990.

Lévêque, Mathilde. “Erika Mann, Lisa Tetzner, Ruth Rewald: la littérature de jeunesse en exil (1933–1945).” In Le livre pour enfants: Regards critiques oferts a Isabelle Nières-Chevrel, edited by Cecile Boulaire, 1–10. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2006. Accessed July 11, 2022. http://books.openedition.org/pur/41345. https://doi.org/10.4000/books.pur.41345.

Linhard, Tabea Alexa. “A Novel That Never Was: Ruth Rewald’s Vier Spanische Jungen.” In Jewish Imaginaries of the Spanish Civil War, edited by Cynthia Gabbay, 157–71. New York, London, and Dublin: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022.

Rewald, Ruth. Vier spanische Jungen: Herausgegeben und mit einem Nachwort von Dirk Krüger. Cologne: Röderberg, 1987.