You think staying friends with people who disagree with you during an election is hard? Try it during a war. Will Pflaum Follow Oct 3, 2016 · 11 min read

A poll last month, September 2016, showed that seven percent of Americans have lost a friend during this presidential campaign. Imagine how much harder it would be to stay friend with those on the other side in an actual civil war, when people are in fact killing each other for their beliefs. Yet, it can be done.

Nuria in Barcelona writing on the stationary of her father’s medical practice… her letters are quite some humdingers of extremism. She went on to live into her 90s as a Catalan nationalist politician, still left leaning, but no longer communist in her later years

Working on a book on Pazzis Sureda, Spanish artist, I read some remarkable letters written during the Spanish Civil War. At that time, from 1936 to 1939, the Republic was fighting the fascist forces, or Nationalists, of Francisco Franco. In 1937, Pazzis’ ex-husband and best friend was a staunch Republican and in a concentration camp, close to death. Pazzis herself was thoroughly in favor of the Republic.

Pazzis was living under the fascists in Mallorca, an island that was not one of the hotter spots of warfare. Her friend Esperanza was also under the fascist when she wrote to Pazzis on May 6, 1937, although she had lived through some intense fighting. Esperanza wrote:

We have suffered a lot, me particularly, as I have had an odyssey that corresponds to so many others, accompanying poor Jesus, the reds killed him as we were on our way to Madrid to get married. The detained us on the road and since then I am quite miserable because I loved him so much and even now I love him and nothing in the world consoles me because I have too much spirit for these times… A few times I would have wanted to speak to you. I am like a little girl, I have no force nor want to… Matias the priest was also shot in the door of the house on the first day. We live with his family and one other.

Pazzis was a red. Maybe Esperanza hadn’t realized when she off-handly mentioned the reds, as if less than human. The “reds” shot Jesus and left his body in a ditch and she was unable to gather his remains for some time. She saw the whole thing on her wedding day.

The next day, dated May 7, 1937. Pazzis wrote back to her friend Esperanza.

Poor Jesus! How is it possible? How could they detain you with him like that? You were fleeing Toledo? Can you really give me details? How much I would like to be with you! How many times I have thought of you, thought of you! I wrote to you a long time ago, almost a year, and didn’t hear anything more from you. I imagined you were in Extremadura, or already married and happy in some part of Spain, with a new life, new friends, and you had forgotten us. Write to me, write to me right away. Tell me everything you can tell me. You know how much I love you, for me you are more than a sister, and I am happy that you exist somewhere in the world. Every day I appreciate our friendship more. I love you very much. Don’t think you are so alone. If at this time I could go to you, I would. I know I could console you somewhat. You should weaken or despair. A good day will come. Have faith in life to come, don’t think that these critical moments are forever. Hope, only that. I’m not telling you to be deluded, but to wait and hope patiently. The good day will come. You yourself will be surprised to see yourself laugh again, to see you spirit shine in the sun. Even if wanted to, I could not tell you anything about myself. I can’t tell you anything. I have not lost anyone in my family. At least, none of my siblings. Although we don’t know anything about Felipe, as he was in Jaén, and sick. As you know, I have been sick since I was one year old. I am much better. If they let me, I will go to America in a short while. Only one letter from Fred has gotten through to me since all of this began. The trip will be very difficult in my present state. But here I don’t have any way to live. Economically at my house we lost everything. For the past six months we have been eating in one of the charity soup kitchen set up given the circumstances. But that is not at all important. Yes, here that has been war too. Imagine it. But in the end, now it is all quieter. In any event, what happened has happened and nothing worse can come along now. All misfortune has fallen on others, although I would wish it all on myself, as I would know how to overcome all that. My past is a sad one. I have almost forgotten it now. I never told you I’m divorced, that I was married for ten years. I was married when I was 18. When I was in Toledo my situation was precarious and I didn’t want to talk about it. I’m telling you now because I want you to know how time obliterates sadness. I can’t tell you more things because these letters are read. But you see Esperanza, my love, everything has happened. It was worse than death. I have known happiness later, something I never, never could have imagined. Like this, you must have faith, have hope. Someday we will be together and I will be able to do something for you. Write to me. I can’t tell you. My situation is the inverse of yours. Kisses, affections, kisses, Pazzis

Pazzis here is alluding to a very traumatic event in her own life that she had not told anyone about, long before the war. In the atmosphere of tragedy, she wanted to re-establish a bond of trust with Esperanza.

In her letter to Pazzis Esperanza emphasized her experience of war had made her more religious, a practicing Catholic, quite different than she had been when Pazzis and Espernza were friends in 1933 and 34. A few months later Pazzis wrote Esperanza again, after the death of her brother Felipe, on August 11, 1937:

Your letter. I was still under the painful impression of your letter, bitter, despondent, that I had woken up the next morning with a sensation of complete annihilation. When Pedro, in the afternoon brought me news of the death of my brother Felipe. Now I don’t know of what to speak to you about, of my brother to you. But I will speak to you about you. If not, it will seem as if we are whipping up a round of misfortunes. The death of Jesus, your political ideas, your religious sentiment, your disillusionment with me. Everything, through such a passionate temperament. I understand everything quite well, the consequences of one thing, and then another. I understand that due Jesus’ death your hatred has coalesced on one party. That is the how civil war ends, hatreds. I thought for a moment how sad it would be were we to end up hating each other, you and I. Because I also have my hatreds. It is possible that you are right. I only think, finally, but I understand you. I would also be capable of hating if events as personalized for me as they have been for you, and if I were as passionate as you. I think that my family’s disgrace, so profound and tough, of all of my people, has left me without the breath you need to feel alive, and I only feel in a passive way. And I understand all relationships, all of them, have burst and sprouted misfortune. I feel pain for some and for others, and I feel pain for all that has done me wrong. You say you can return to God. From God never part. You have returned to religion. That makes me happy, and it will be a solace for you, the best you can find on this earth. You will be happy in it, while you sincerely feel it, and while you sincerely feel it, it will be the only truth that exists. What hurts me most really is that you might think I have deceived you. If you imagine in me a lack of faithfulness, our friendship doesn’t exist. I have not deceived you. I believed that you would understand that silence has its reasons, and that sometimes things have turned out so complicated, a life so complicated, that to explain it would be a lie. Don’t ever judge. Refrain and respect. It may be that one day we meet again. Maybe I can then tell you my life, and maybe I won’t be able to tell it to you. I didn’t know that it would be necessary in an elemental way, to tell intimate incidents, to establish a friendship. I didn’t know that these movements and moral values would be scattered across the earth. Besides, our life has not developed in isolation from others, and we cannot talk about ourselves independently from others. That that is precisely why I am reserved, because I don’t dare to analyze others. In any event, now I have become more expansive. I think the only solace we have, although miserable, is to communicate between ourselves. Before I didn’t not seek solace, as that would be passive, I worked to perfect myself, as that would be active. But I lost faith in the process, and now I try to find solace. I did not deceive you, Esperanza. I’m ill, tuberculosis. I live alone, in Génova, on my brother Jacobo’s property, a little tiny house. I was in my parents’ house for a year. In November, I think I will go to America where Fred waits for me. There I think… [a page is missing] Bull house… there was Tomas. You will remember. Very Catholic and blessed. One day I will go back to Toledo. I will go back to you. Fred painting el Alcazar a lot. I made fun of his favorite motif, conventional motifs make me indignant. I never drew the place and now I regret it. Fred sold almost all of his paintings of Alcazar. I would not have sold them. What is your mother doing? Your sisters? I wrote you a letter a few days ago. I want you to cultivate your memory of Jesus. Also I understand you. This memorial has to be by the most excellent force you ever undertake in your life. Write me. Tell me about your daily life, what you have done. Much affection, always, P.

Pazzis took a chance with this letter. It might have been too much for Esperanza, something of a challenge, and could easily have been the last word in the friendship. But, to her credit, Esperanza wrote back and showed willingness to hold on to the relationship.

Pazzis refers to something worse than death. She was raped by her uncle, became pregnant and had to abandon the child in an orphanage due to family pressure, and that of her husband, who married her knowing about the rape. He was unwilling to raise the child. Pazzis was in fact 19, not 18, at the time. When she says “worse than death,” she is referring to that trauma.

Esperanza apparently questions Pazzis on her candor about her marriage, never mentioning that she had been married in 1926. Also, as a Catholic, it seems to have bothered Esperanza that Pazzis was living with a man to who she was not married when they knew each other in Toledo in 1933 and 34. Pazzis was no longer with her husband, Fernando, but had run off with an American painter, when she met Esperanza.

Dear Pazzis: I have gotten two of your letters: forgive me if I have offended you without intending to. I don’t hate you, but sometimes I’m crazy, and besides as I believe everything, if it doesn’t turn out like I thought, it bothers me so much I think I have been deceived. I might be foolish but it bothered me a lot that you weren’t married to Fred. Can you explain it? When you think about it, why that issue might matter to me? I can’t. Besides, before I thought that didn’t have another husband. Maybe I’m making a mistake but, as I’m sure of everything, if you take my confidence away, I lose myself. As far as everything else, I don’t think anything bad about you, as you are quite good, and I love you and also you have always been quite unfortunate, but you had bad luck. I have also had bad luck but never did anything bad to anyone. I am very sorry for the loss of you brother, as that might well lead to many misfortunes. He’s the one that was with the post office? I suppose that he would have died like everyone. Take care of yourself and go to Fred as soon as you can. I remember how well and strong you were in Toledo, and the walks you took through the countryside. That climate where you are is not good for you. So alone and abandoned as you are, with no one to take care of you, has to be bad for you. So it would be better to be with Fred and have your own house. If you go, Fred will accept you. If you don’t go, he will continue to live calmly without you. But you should welcome him, as you have devoted the best years of your life to him. You have given enough, now it’s his turn. Now you understand me. Right? Fred may be very good, but he is comfortable and never suffers no matter what. You were right when you talked about how he is, now I understand quite a bit that I didn’t understand before. We have formed a Falangist theater troupe and we got around doing shows in almost all of the liberated part of Spain. In Toledo we have already done three shows and in a few days we’re off. I don’t work but Carmen does and they have let me in as an extra. And as I said there is a project to go to Germany although we don’t know anything specific. Then I would stay there for a while. I have Jesus in my thoughts constantly but as time goes on I am I dare to speak of him less and less. My poor one! My mother and my brothers are well. My mother has suffered from my problems. You cannot imagine how horrible it has been in Toledo. Later I will write you more, and don’t think I forgot you. I think about you many times but I don’t have the desire to write. A hug for you, I will write to Fred and tell him about you. Long live Spain!

In her war letters, Pazzis comes off as almost wise. For example, Pazzis is an atheist. However, if Esperanza needs religion, Pazzis encourages her to embrace orthodoxy, something Pazzis herself despised.

This wisdom comes from the situation. She should have told Esperanza about the pain in her own life before so she might comfort her friend better now. Her friend is in the enemy camp. “I think the only solace we have, although miserable, is to communicate between ourselves.” She stumbles into wisdom as she follows her heart, mixing her desire to console with her ideas.

The world went nuts and Pazzis seemed relatively rational. Pazzis and rational are two words you wouldn’t normally put in the same sentance.

In a letter to a friend, you stumble onto to wisdom only when you write to your friend instead of seeing him or her in person, because he or she is far away, and only when you let your feelings for your friend guide your thoughts.

Pazzis also managed to get letters from another friend, living on the Republican side, undoubtedly read by military censors, a girl of 21 called Nuria in Barcelona. Nuria was a convinced communist and tried to bring Pazzis into her movement, with no success. Receiving such a letter could have been a death sentence, but Pazzis wrote back. That is another friendship and another story. Pazzis kept her friends, extremists in either direction, who were actively working to kill each other as she exchanged letters with both sides at the same time.

The war went on and Pazzis and Esperanza never saw each other again and these letters were the last word on the friendship. Thus ends the Epistle to Esperanza.