Maruja Lara, militia-woman with the Maroto Column

The anarcho-syndicalist activist Angustias Lara Sánchez, better known as Maruja Lara, was born on 11 September 1913 in Granada. At the age of 3 she moved away to Brazil with her family and then on to Argentina where her father was active in the FORA. In January 1932, she returned to Granada where she joined the CNT and was also active in the Libertarian Youth. In the city she became acquainted with leading militants like José Zarco Martín and Francisco Maroto del Ojo. After the army’s fascist coup attempt, she fled Granada in September 1936 for Tocón, Baza and Guadix and for a time she served as a militia-woman with the Maroto Column. In mid-1937 she settled in Valencia and joined the Nurses’ Union, working in Hospital Number 1.

In Valencia, they made her the treasurer of the Mujeres Libres and she knew lots of militants of that organization such as Amelia Torres, Lucía Sánchez Saornil, Suceso Portales, Carmen Pons, Natacha Cabezas, Paquita Domínguez, América Barroso, Pura Pérez and so on. She developed a great friendship with Isabel Mesa Delgado (aka Carmen Delgado Palomares). And took part in the tribute to the 25th Division. Once the civil war was over, in March 1939, Lara and Mesa boarded a lorry, heading for Almería in hope of securing a passage to Algeria, but they finished up in the docks in Alicante and from there were removed to the Francoist concentration camp in Albatera. In the end, Maruja Lara was able to escape to Almería and Granada.

Later she worked for a time in a sweet factory in Granada and in late 1939 she made her way back to Valencia. Along with her great pal Isabel Mesa, she set up a kiosk in the city of Valencia where they stocked the libertarian press. In 1942 the two friends, along with some other libertarian compañeras, launched the UMD (Union of Women Democrats) group, an underground organization for funnelling aid to female prisoners and to their families; at the same time they mounted activities against the Franco dictatorship. In 1955 Maruja’s activities led to her being arrested. She continued to live in Valencia, except for a few months spent in Palma de Mallorca (1940) and in France (1960), to where she had fled to escape the repression. After Franco died, she played an active part in rebuilding the CNT and supported the creation of the free radio station Radio Klara. In 1997 she wrote for the anarchist review El Chico. Maruja Lara died in Valencia on 29 February 2012. 

From A-Infos 19/01/2019

Translated by: Paul Sharkey.