Chapter 25 - 1936 - The Spanish Civil War (continued)

Along with organizations such as the Canadian League Against War and Fascism came the Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy. At their invitation, Dr. Norman Bethune left Canada for Spain in November 1936 joining the MacKenzie-Papineau Battalion to head the Canadian Medical Unit. Dad provides this account:

“Bethune had this theory that battles were lost though loss of blood. Throughout history soldiers lay bleeding in the battlefield and bled to death.  If you could do something medically to revolutionize this, prevent soldiers from bleeding to death before they can reach a hospital, [then] that would be the most constructive thing to do.  So he established this blood bank in Spain. We sent over refrigerators and trucks to carry the refrigerators around.  Calgary sent one ambulance. We raised tremendous sums of money for Spain.”

 We organized vast meetings.  I filled the Capitol Theatre in Edmonton at Sunday night meetings......  The theatres weren’t open on Sundays – the Lord’s Day Act – and you could rent the theatre.  I think we used to pay $60 for the Capitol Theatre in Calgary for a Sunday night meeting.  The Capitol Theatre in Calgary held 1200 people and in Edmonton, about the same.  In Lethbridge - a little less maybe...But we had Sunday night meetings in all these cities.

 The first famous speakers that we brought for a series of meetings were a distinguished delegation from Spain, members of the Spanish Republican government: One of them was Father Luis Sarasola, a Basque priest from the northern provinces of Spain who spoke good English and a man called Marcelino Domingo who was the leading social democrat in Spain and a member of the government. There was a tremendous interest. We had no trouble filling those halls.”

Note: This delegation also included Senora Isabela De Palencia. All three are pictured below.

Photo (c) 2012 Rogers Photo Archive/Argenta Images