Pérez Navarro, Joaquín

Born in Calpes de Arenoso (Castellón) 4 August 1907. From a humble farming background, he moved away with his widowed mother to Barcelona in 1918, finding work as a hod-carrier before becoming a waiter (his final trade) and joining the anarchist movement sometime around 1922-1923, giving it his all. In July 1936 he was involved in the fighting in Barcelona and then immediately set off for Aragon: he worked on the collectives in Gelsa and Pina de Ebro, turning down a officer’s commission in the army and was active in the Friends of Durruti group with which he fought against the Stalinists in Barcelona in May 1937. Later, he seems to have served with what had once been the Iron Column and in late 1938 he was arrested and tortured by the Stalinists who sentenced him to death and jailed him in Montjuich. Escaping with the Francoists at the gates of Barcelona, he made it to France: in January 1939 he was in the camps in Argelès and Barcarés and within a year was part of the labour companies working on the building of the sea wall in Brest, escaping from there to Great Britain after the German occupation. From then on he lived in England, was active in an anarchist group in London and in 1969-1974 headed up the CNT Liaison Commission in Great Britain. Still alive in 1999. Author of Relato poético (London 1995), S.I.M.(Servicio de Investigación Militar) (Barcelona 1998, co-written with Francisco Piqueras), and Yo luché por la revolución social del pueblo español y por todos los pueblos del mundo (Barcelona 1999)

[New acquisition: We would like to thank Joaquín Pérez Navarro for donating his books and papers to the Kate Sharpley Library.]

From: Esbozo de una Enciclopedia Historica del Anarquismo Espanol. Translated by: Paul Sharkey.