Pepita Not | |
|---|---|
 Not in 1934 | |
| Born | Josefa Not Bosch (1897-11-23)23 November 1897 Torregrossa, Catalonia, Spain |
| Died | 4 June 1938(1938-06-04) (aged 40) Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain |
| Resting place | Montjuïc Cemetery |
| Occupations | Maid,cook |
| Organisation | Los Solidarios |
| Movement | Anarchism |
| Partner | Ricardo Sanz |
| Children | Floréal, Violeta |
| Parents |
|
Josefa "Pepita" Not Bosch (23 November 1897 – 4 June 1938) was aCatalananarchistactivist. Born to a poor peasant family in theprovince of Lleida, her family moved toBarcelona, where she was forced to work as ahousekeeper from an early age. She entered into afree union with the Valencian anarchist militantRicardo Sanz and helped him hide from the police. During thedictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera, Not smuggled money, weapons and correspondence for the anarchist militant groupLos Solidarios. After the proclamation of theSecond Spanish Republic, she went intoprisoner support activism. Following the outbreak of theSpanish Civil War, she fell gravely ill while pregnant with her second child and died fromacute leukemia.
Josefa "Pepita" Not Bosch was born in the Catalan village ofTorregrossa,[1] on 23 November 1897.[2] She was born into a family of poor peasants,[3] and was the second of seven children.[2] Her mother, Magdalena Bosch, died while she was still young.[4] Her family subsequently moved to the Catalan capital ofBarcelona.[5] Her father, Salvador Not, forced her to begin working at the young age of 11.[6] She found a job as amaid andcook,[6] at the house of a wealthy French family oncarrer de Balmes. The family forced her to work long hours without food, while her father kept most of her wages, which made her strongly dislike them both.[7]
Towards the end ofWorld War I, in early 1918, Not met the young Valencian trade unionistRicardo Sanz at a carnaval and they quickly fell in love,[7] beginning a relationship together.[8] When the war ended, Catalonia experienced and economic crisis, leading to theCanadenca general strike and the outbreak of acivil conflict, during which several trade unionists (including friends of Sanz) were assassinated.[9] Through Sanz, Not first became involved in theSpanish anarchist movement.[10] During these years, she began working at the home of an Argentine family, who gave her much better working conditions including hours of free time, which allowed her to become closer with Sanz. She moved out of her own family home into his, where she was welcomed warmly. When Sanz was fired during an industrial dispute, he was able to rely on Not for support. As the civil conflict intensified, Sanz joined an anarchist militant group and was soon wanted by the police. With Not's help and support, he became a fugitive, going into hiding in his hometown.[11] By the time he returned to Barcelona, Not had lost her job, as her employers had returned to Argentina and she decided to remain behind with Sanz. She was able to find work as a cook for another wealthy family, while Sanz worked at an iron foundry. With money from anindemnity from Sanz's former employer, they furnished their house, and in 1922, they entered into afree union with each other.[12]
Following the establishment of thedictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera, in December 1923, Sanz was arrested and imprisoned by the new regime. While pregnant with their first child, she continued working to support their family and brought her imprisoned partner food and clean clothes twice per week. She gave birth to their son, Floréal (named after thesecond month of spring in theFrench Republican calendar), inLleida on 2 April 1924. She continued supporting Sanz during his five years of imprisonment, even as he was transferred from Barcelona to various prisons throughout the country.[13] During this time, she joined the anarchist militant groupLos Solidarios,[14] which Sanz had co-founded in 1922 to resistpolitical repression against the anarchist movement.[15] Not was one of only a few women in the group, alongsideRamona Berni,Juliana López andMaría Luisa Tejedor [ca].[16] As she was unknown to the police, she was able to act with some amount of operational freedom.[15] Together with Berni, she developed the group's communications and liason network.[17] She travelled around the country, smuggling money and weapons for the group, and handling their mail, which brought her toAragon,Euskal Herria andAsturias, and then back to Catalonia.[14] While continuing to work and care for her family, she carried out clandestine activism for the group, maintaining their lines of communication and distributing their propaganda throughout Barcelona. On one occasion, while she was still pregnant, she smuggled one million pesetas from a robbery in Asturias to Barcelona.[15]
Following the fall of the dictatorship and the proclamation of theSecond Spanish Republic in 1931, a general amnesty was declared, allowing many exiled and imprisoned members ofLos Solidarios to return to their lives in Barcelona. Not quickly established contact with the returned activists and their partners, and when Sanz returned to the city, they moved into a flat inEl Poblenou.[18] Not then became involved inprisoner support activism, alongsideRosario Dolcet andLlibertat Ródenas.[19] She agitated for better conditions for prisoners and visited them in order to find out what they needed, details on which she passed on to the prisoner support committee and their lawyers. According to Sanz, she led some of the group's "most dangerous missions", all while she continued working as ahousekeeper.[18] With the outbreak of theSpanish Civil War in July 1936, Not stayed at home to care for her son and partner, who was busy overseeing the formation of theconfederal militias during the early months of the war. After thedeath of Buenaventura Durruti in November 1936, Sanz left home to assume command of theDurruti Column (later the26th Division), leaving Not behind, pregnant with their second child. From their home in Poblenou, Not helped meet the needs of the family members of the combatants who fought under Sanz.[18]
Not's second pregnancy was difficult, causing her health to deteriorate. Her situation was exacerbated by the constant bombardments of the city, which forced her to find refuge at a friend's house inCerdanyola del Vallès, leaving her son in Barcelona to finish his secondary schooling. When she birth to her daughter, Violeta, on 1 January 1938, Not fell gravely ill. Sanz was not able to leave the front to visit his new daughter or his ailing partner.[20] Following the Nationalists'Aragon Offensive, Sanz fell back to theSegre and moved his family to the nearby city ofSolsona. Not's health continued to deteriorate, forcing her to move back to Barcelona seeking urgent medical attention. She was diagnosed withacute leukemia and the doctors attempted to treat her, but it was too late.[21]
Pepita Not died from her illness on 4 June 1938.[19] Herobituary was published on the following day inSolidaridad Obrera byJoan Garcia Oliver, who remembered her as a kind and loyal anarchist militant who had "lived for others".[21] At 11:00 on 7 June, her body was buried in theMontjuïc Cemetery; her funeral was attended by many anarchists, trade unionists, political and military officials, including Sanz.[22] After Not's death, Sanz left Violeta in the care of Flora Barranco Garcia and sent Floréal to a French children's home while he continued fighting; Floréal would die inBonnac on 26 January 1940. At the end of the war, Sanz fled over the border with Violeta. Following theNazi occupation of France, Sanz was interned inCamp Vernet then transferred to a concentration camp inDjelfa. After theliberation of France, he returned to the country, married and had two more children withJosefina Martínez, and wrote a series of books about the civil war. He died on 25 October 1986.[23]