Jaume Calbet, originally from La Bisbal del Penedès, was called up in April 1938 at just 17 years old, joining 30,000 young men born in 1920. After a month of instruction in Reus, he was immediately sent to the Ebro front to fight for the Republican side.
“"With terrible heat. Every time I went down to the river to look for the wounded, I filled my canteen. I took as much water as I could, grabbed the stretcher with the wounded soldier, and went up those mountains, we left him, and then down again. They caused such mortality... the first ones to arrive there from '41, they were escaping and shouting, and crying..."
His survival was a succession of miracles. After contracting an intestinal infection from drinking contaminated river water, he feigned death in the hospital to avoid being sent back to the front. Later, he survived a bombardment where a piece of shrapnel hit his cartridge belt, saving his life.
“"With the rifle pointing at us, the officer shouted 'Alto! manos arriba! salgan de aquí!' (Stop! Hands up! Get out of here!), we came out with our hands up and the first thing he said to me was: 'Do you know this? It was a shield with the Falange arrows'. We were 3,000 people, all in one room without beds, without blankets, and without anything."
After being captured, he endured the hell of the Santoña concentration camp in Cantabria, where Republican prisoners were mistreated. Three and a half months later, he was released and forced to serve in the Nationalist army until he was 24 years old, eventually returning home to La Bisbal before starting a new life as an accountant in l'Hospitalet de Llobregat.
