ENGLISH CORNER, CON LINDA JIMÉNEZ – This week’s trivia question: What was Eduardo Martínez Alonso’s profession and how was he able to use it to save thousands of people from the nazis during World War II?

(This interview was first posted in 2011.) 

Patricia Martínez de Vicente is a social anthropologist who has published numerous articles on Spanish and Latin American society and culture.  During World War II her father worked at the British Embassy in Madrid, and he was able to use his position to save many foreigners who were prisoners of Franco’s régime. She only learned of this about twenty years ago, and began a research project that led to the publication of her first book on the subject, Embassy y la Inteligencia de Mambrú in 2003.

In 2010, after gaining access to more documents, she published La clave Embassy.  Because she is bilingual, she was able to use both Spanish and British documents, and the book has numerous notes and an ample bibliography. While it is a serious historical work, the book also makes fascinating reading.  In 2011 we spoke with Martínez de Vicente about her research for this book and her father’s work.

Since this interview was first posted, she has written two more books on the subject of people who escaped the Holocaust through Spain:  Paso doble and, in March 2021, El té de la libertad, for which the author was able to use documents only recently declassified by the British government.