Spanish doctor honoured for saving thousands of European Jews who fled Nazi regime
Spanish doctor honoured for saving thousands of European Jews who fled Nazi regime-The Telegraph
Dr Eduardo Martínez Alonso would take care of those fleeing Nazis by sheltering them and falsifying documents
|
|
|
|
|
|
Dr Eduardo Martínez Alonso and family
A Spanish doctor who rescued thousands of European Jews fleeing the Nazi regime using the British Embassy as a cover may finally have a street named after him as Madrid council considers who to honour this year.
For many World War Two refugees fleeing across the Pyrenees and into Spain, the key was to make it to the tearoom on the ground floor of the building which housed the British Embassy in Madrid at the time.
From there Dr Eduardo Martínez Alonso would take care of them by sending them on to the safety of Gibraltar or Portugal.
Dr Martínez also devised a route to Portugal from a concentration camp where Spain's Franco regime kept prisoners near Burgos. He was allowed in to visit sick British inmates and falsified papers to get hundreds released.
For years few people, except a few associates and his wife, knew of his efforts to save thousands of Eastern European Jews, as well as Britons and others fleeing the Nazis during his lifetime.
Dr Martínez was born in Galicia, northwestern Spain, but his Uruguayan father spent many years as a diplomat in Britain, meaning his son was brought up in Glasgow before studying medicine at the University of Liverpool.
Dr Eduardo Martínez Alonso
By the time World War Two broke out, he was living a comfortable bourgeois existence in Madrid, working as the British Embassy physician among other posts.
During the war, thanks to his cover as a doctor, his language skills and courage, he became the linchpin of British diplomats' efforts to save Hitler's victims.
Those who reached the tearoom were taken to a Madrid apartment or his family home in Galicia by Dr Martínez while a safe journey out of Spain was arranged.
The heroic doctor's daughter, Patricia Martínez de Vicente, said that her father had never talked about his wartime espionage exploits, and only the declassification of documents in 2005 allowed her to access his file.
"When I opened it, I felt a huge knot in my throat. My god, he was a real, full-on spy", Ms Martínez told the newspaper El Mundo in 2010 after she had published a book about the doctor's story, 'La clave Embassy' (Codename Embassy).
Dr Martínez, his daughter said, had signed Britain's Official Secrets Act in 1943 and kept a lid on his role in saving thousands from the Nazis.
Dr Eduardo Martínez Alonso By the time World War Two broke out, he was living a comfortable bourgeois existence in Madrid, working as the British Embassy physician among other posts.
During the war, thanks to his cover as a doctor, his language skills and courage, he became the linchpin of British diplomats' efforts to save Hitler's victims.
Those who reached the tearoom were taken to a Madrid apartment or his family home in Galicia by Dr Martínez while a safe journey out of Spain was arranged.
The heroic doctor's daughter, Patricia Martínez de Vicente, said that her father had never talked about his wartime espionage exploits, and only the declassification of documents in 2005 allowed her to access his file.
"When I opened it, I felt a huge knot in my throat. My god, he was a real, full-on spy", Ms Martínez told the newspaper El Mundo in 2010 after she had published a book about the doctor's story, 'La clave Embassy' (Codename Embassy).
Dr Martínez, his daughter said, had signed Britain's Official Secrets Act in 1943 and kept a lid on his role in saving thousands from the Nazis.
Muchas gracias amiga por esta publicación. Soy el bebé del medio con mis padres ya de regreso en Madrid. Y la autora de "La clave Embassy" de donde ha salido esta información. Hay bastante más en google por mi nombre o el de mi padre, el Dr. Eduardo Martinez Alonso. Un saludo
ResponderBorrar