There are fourteen good mornings

His name was Pedro Inglés, born on May 19, 1902 in the town of Vilanova de Huerva in Zaragoza, and he had lived in the Becaina house in Escaldes since 1931. He was conscripted into the army and worked as a miner in the Fasa factory. He married Elvira Feliu, daughter of Tavascan, and in May 1935 gave birth to their first and only daughter, Elvira. Three years later – and this date is no coincidence – Inglés was fired by Fasa and from now on he would have to find the life of a smuggler. He first sought to renew his French residency permit by approaching the then trustee, Francesc Cairat. He brought with him a certificate of work and good conduct “issued by the respected consul of Andorra”, but it seemed that it was of little use to him. From here the trail is lost and we do not resume it again until April 5, 1944: Ingles has been arrested and transferred to Compiègne, the main transit camp where Jews, resistance fighters, political prisoners and other “undesirables” were sent back to the Nazi concentration camps. Two days later he was sent to Mauthausen, where he joined the Melk Commando, one of the Mauthausen sub-camps, with the registration number M.62571. He would never leave again: on July 8 of the same year he was gassed.
The fatal fate of Ingles and his close ties to Andorra were determined by a group of International Baccalaureate students from Andorran schools who started a very interesting communication project about those who were deported to the concentration camps, in collaboration with the National Archives and the historian Pau Chica of Velles Cases and of course Roser Porta, with co-author Jorge Cebrián d“Andorrans in Nazi concentration camps And it is no accident that the Andorran high school librarian is also a person who has been in the care of many people. We will discuss this shortly, but first let us explain the tragic and unprecedented experience that our people are going through today, which we can now add to the canonical list along with our thirteen expellees: in the future there must be fourteen, and most likely there will be more but we will discuss it in due course. Today, all the focus is on Ingles, who was born in Spain since 1931 and who has managed to escape the scrutiny of Porta and Cebrián precisely because he was included in the Mauthausen list (and in Memorial book: Spaniards deported to Nazi concentration campsthe Bible on the subject) were listed as Spanish citizens.
In fact, Ingles’s record at Mauthausen is even more specific: he is listed as a Rotspanier, “Red Spaniard.” That is, a communist. In fact, a Aragonese victims of the massacre It indicates his relationship with the UGT, a union closely associated with the PSOE. In any case, this does not change the facts and perhaps explains the gap between his dismissal from Fhasa in 1938 and 1944: Inglés made his living as a smuggler and was most likely a smuggler. Research suggests that Inglés could have been the guide who brought Carla Kimhi and her family to Seu in November 1942, who left Acs on the 12th of that month and recklessly put down roots in Pas de la Casa. As they were heading for the port of Envarilla (thus on Andorran territory), they were stopped by a German soldier, and fortunately the presence of an Andorran policeman prevented their arrest and, most likely, deportation: they were Jewish Austrians who had been on the run from the Germans since 1938. Kimhi herself reminded us of this in 2015, when she stood in the government press room to thank Andorra for the generous welcome she had received in 1942. At the time she remembered that the guide who helped them reach Spain was named Pierre and had a daughter about his age.
Is Pilar our Englishman? Researchers almost take it for granted that the fact is that Kimhi himself contacted Inglés’ daughter Pilar (born in 1935 in Escaldes) in 2015. It would be a terrible way to close the Andorran capitol of Kimhi Odessa after we know that the policeman who rescued her from the Nazis was Daniel Armengol. They tie things up when they contact Pilar, who now lives in the United States, and the last news we have is another sensational document that they compiled with the help of Chica: in this case, a letter from the French office ‘Protection des Réfugiés et Apatrides’, dated November 1959, which succinctly recounts Inglés’ last moments: “How I promised you that I would not have done this if it had been about my friend El Gran Maño”, says the “author of ‘The The letter reads: “I went to that friend about Inglés Mata, Pedro, who was arrested on April 18, 1944 and transferred to Stalag P. 122 – 28833. M. 62571. Died (burned) on July 8, 1944 (you see he lived only three months after entering the stone tower). When asked about his relatives, he said that he had to warn his daughter Liberta, who was living in Tavascan at the time, but did not reveal the name of his wife. Was he married? Is the daughter considered a legitimate daughter or a biological daughter? In any case, tell your daughter to send you two copies of her father’s birth certificate, her own birth certificate, a marriage certificate of her parents and a death certificate of her mother. In any case, you see everything is known in the world. A hug to everyone…”

English and 13 other subjects
The fact is that Ingles’ wife died in May 1941 in Escaldes, so it must be assumed that in these days the family, including Pedro, continued to live in the house in Becana. Fifteen years later, Pilar seems to have returned to Tahuascán, her mother’s village. What remains to be solved (and above all, to be documented) is the great mystery of this difficult investigation: where and for what reason was Ingles arrested, detained in Compiègne and sent to Mauthausen? The paternity of this file, Rotspanier, makes us think that he actually worked as a pin, and it is the memories of Robert Font, Ingles’ nephew, who was the first clue that allowed this investigation to unfold. He contacted Eulàlia Beal, a teacher at the Andorana school. Purely by chance. “One day when I was having lunch at home with my mother, I mentioned the students’ research and she discussed it with one of her friends, who she said was the nephew of a deportee from Scandinavia. It was Robert. We checked and it wasn’t on the list for Porta and Cebrián, and that was it.”
English, in order to draw conclusions, it will be necessary in the future to add him to the list of deportees who ended up in Buchenwald: Bonaventura Casal (1911-Germany, 1945), Francisco Mora (C Jubella, Sispony, 1912), Josep Franchi (Carl Bonnet-Platz, 1903-Buchwald, 1944), Bonaventura Bonfil (Carl Candela Meritexl, 1912-Prades, 1973), Pere Mandico (Casa Sicos-Platz, 1907-Lazu, 1971) and Candide Rossel (?). Anton Vidal (Carl Vidal, Prats, 1900-Mauthausen, 1945) and Mikkel Adrach (Carl Serra, Lötz, 1908-Pamis, 1977) certainly shared a fate with Inglés, since all three were deported to Mauthausen, and Adrach also, who left Compiègne on the same day and in the same convoy as ours today. The list of those deported to the Nazi concentration camps is completed by Josep Calvó (Casa Jaumina, Prats, 1913-Buchenwald, 1945?), Antoni Puigdellívol and Josep Rossell.
The research that made it possible to find English is part of a project that will soon be completed with the publication of Thirteen Roads to Hell, a digital book that reconstructs the plight of (so far) thirteen Andorran deportees, including an interview with Bonaventura’s granddaughter, Cristina Casal. All this comes from reading Primo Levi’s If This Is A Man, in the literary theme, the historical theme, the central library and the added project “Creativity, Action and Service”, including a trip to Krakow, where students visited the concentration camp Auschwitz and will be completed with the installation of a memory stone (stolperstein) in front of the house of each of our deportees, a collaboration with the Velles House
Not bad for a handful of high school students, huh?

Bonaventura Casal will have its first “stolperstein”

For two years, Velles Cases has been working on a project: to place a memorial stone (stolperstein) in front of the birthplace of each Andorran deported to a Nazi concentration camp. This is a project promoted by the Berlin sculptor Günter Demnig, which consists in planting a stolperstein (that’s roughly what the stolperstein means) in the place where a victim of Nazism was born or lived, a simple cement pebble covered with a tin plate on which a very concise biography is engraved. The winner’s information: place of birth, year of deportation, camp where they were detained and final destination (murdered or released). This is made more complicated by the difficulty of finding the descendants of our deportees, many of whom live abroad, says Francina Pons, vice president of Velles Cases. Currently, the relevant event is the tribute to Bonaventura Casal, son of Carla Arn of La Majineda. He is likely to be the first Andorran to have a stolperstein, which will remind him, in his case, of the experience of passing through the Buchenwald concentration camp. Permits will be issued this year – the stone will be placed on a public road, placed on the ground, forcing pedestrians to bend down in respect.