SPAIN: The Mayor Who Came Out of the Cellar

Like many towns that fell to the advancing forces of Generalissimo Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War, the mountain resort village of Cercedilla (current pop. 4,000), 35 miles north of Madrid, suffered its share of Nationalist vengeance. Some Republican sympathizers were imprisoned and a few were shot, while many more fled to exile. One of those never accounted for was Protasio Montalvo, the Socialist mayor of Cercedilla during part of the war. For years villagers wondered whether he had died fighting on some distant front or had been a victim of...

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