Culture of remembrance: The Cartilla escolar antifascista

In April 1937, a brochure entitled “Cartilla escolar antifascista” (“Anti-Fascist School Primer”) was published in Valencia, published by the Ministerio de Instrucción Pública y Bellas Artes of the Spanish Popular Front government in a circulation of 25,000, then in a second edition with 150,000 copies. ), which 80 years later was included in the 15 most representative graphic works of Spain in the Digital Library of the European Union. The Ministry of Popular Education, which was headed by the Politburo member of the Spanish Communist Party (PCE) Jesús Hernandez, had a twofold intention with the publication: On the one hand, the primer was intended to help overcome illiteracy, which, for example, was particularly common among young recruits People’s Army coming from rural areas was worrying. On the other hand, learning reading, writing and arithmetic should be linked to imparting knowledge about the republic, the goals of the Popular Front and the necessity of the fight against the Franco-fascists.

The campaign included educational missions in rural areas and diverse lessons on the front lines. The main task fell to the cultural militias, which were not military units, and were led by Wenceslao Roces, professor of Roman law at the University of Salamanca, publisher and translator, César Garcia Lombardia, general director of primary education and general inspector of cultural militias, and Josep Renau, poster artist , mural painter and general director of fine arts, who later lived and worked in the GDR for many years.

Popular education was an important part of social change, which the parties of the Popular Front equally set as their primary concern, which was not ignored even under wartime conditions. The “Cartilla” occupied an outstanding place with its completely new teaching method. Each exercise began with a sentence that was to be analyzed and broken down into its words, syllables and letters, from which new words and sentences were then formed.

The texts of the primer were written by the primary school inspector Fernando Sánz and the journalist Eusebio Cimorra, and it was illustrated by photographs by the photographers José Val del Omar and José Calandín. The photographer Walter Reuter, who emigrated from Germany to Spain, was also involved in the second edition. The school primer was also provided with further illustrations by Mauricio Amster Cats, probably the most important graphic designer of the time, who was born in 1907 to Jewish parents in Lemberg, today’s Lviv, and who was to revolutionize book design in Spain and later in Chile.

In 1930, Amster followed the call of his friend and compatriot Mariano Rawicz, who was also born in Lemberg in 1908, studied graphics and book art there, in Krakow and Leipzig and had lived in Spain since 1929. Both Rawicz and Amster saw no job opportunities for themselves as leftists in reactionary Poland and began working in Spain as book designers and translators for progressive publishers such as Cenit, Ulisses, Hoy, Dédalo, Renacimiento and Aguilar. Rawicz even founded a photo agency that mainly distributed photos from Soviet agencies in Spain. His sister Stefania (Stepa) came with him to Spain, who later married the People’s Army officer José de la Fuente.

Amster and Rawicz joined the PCE. Rawicz was expelled from Spain in 1934 because he had shown solidarity with the rebellious Asturian miners. He was only able to return to Spain with the victory of the Left Alliance in February 1936. After the coup, both friends made themselves available to the Popular Front government. Amster wanted to join the people’s militias, but was not accepted due to his shortsightedness. However, he took part in the transfer of the National Art Treasure from Madrid to Valencia, where the Republican government had to flee from the Franco-fascists.

Amster and Rawicz were appointed to the Undersecretariat for Propaganda of the Ministry of Popular Education and Fine Arts, where Amster designed the anti-fascist school primer before moving to Barcelona, ​​where he married the bookbinder Adina Amenedo and assisted Ernst Busch in recording his “Canciones de las Brigadas Internacionales « (Songs of the Interbrigadists) and probably also designed the covers of the song books.

At the time, Busch was in a relationship with the German writer Maria Osten, who had previously been friends with the famous Soviet journalist Mikhail Koltsov. Koltsov, who was considered Stalin’s confidant in Spain, had lost Stalin’s trust after a denunciation by André Marty, Swiss journalist and chairman of the Military Political Commission of the International Brigades. Marty had suspected Maria Osten of being an agent of fascist Germany. This led to the KPD defense in Spain clandestinely monitoring Maria Osten and the surrounding area, including Ernst Busch. This mistrust also spread to Amster and was shared by the Republican secret service.

Amster and Rawicz had friends who were considered suspicious by the PCE. In the eyes of the PCE officials, Rawicz had also made a major mistake: In the good faith that he was also helping the Republic abroad, he had met with the Polish journalist Sophia Kramstyk and the Sudeten German, who had lived in Spain for a long time and was friends with Egon Erwin Kisch Playwright and journalist Wilhelm Tieze founded the German-language “Spanish Illustrated”. The PCE also had the same project in mind – the German Interbrigadist Kurt Stern was to take over the management. Of course, he reacted angrily when he discovered that Rawicz and his friends already had a finished project. Since this had happened without the approval of the PCE, Stern now also spread the accusation of “Trotskyism”. What’s more: Stepa Rawicz, who worked part-time in the Ministry of Propaganda and in the postal censorship department, was also accused of letting “Trotskyist mail” go through. Since Amster did not want to distance himself from Rawicz, both were excluded from the PCE. Their protest against this lasted until the end of the republic.

Among Amster’s many acquaintances were Rafael Alberti and his partner María Teresa León, both members of the Asociación de Intelectuales Antifascistas para la Defensa de la Cultura (Association of Antifascist Intellectuals for the Defense of Culture), who, like him, emigrated to France after the defeat of the Republic in 1939 had to. They introduced him to the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, who had previously been consul in Madrid and was now commissioned by the new Chilean president Pedro Aguirre Cerda as special consul to enable Spanish anti-fascists to escape to Chile. With Neruda’s help, Amster was among 2,012 Spanish men and women who made the crossing. Amster received a chair in graphics at the University of Santiago in Chile, which he was to retain until the end of his life. His friend Rawicz, sentenced to life in prison by the Francoists, was released due to international pressure and was finally able to travel to Chile.

Amster soon became a member of the board of directors of the renowned magazine “Babel,” which offered a podium to intellectuals from all over the world. There he published a hymn-like eulogy for Ernst Busch in the May-June issue of 1947 under the title “Impressive Records.” It is not known whether Ernst Busch was aware of this article. He probably never commented publicly about Amster, who died in Santiago in 1980. Perhaps this was because Busch, who had enough trouble of his own, knew of Amster’s eventual, disappointed break with the communist movement.

A sign of change in the politics of memory and commemoration in Spain is a recent publication by the Instituto Cervantes in honor of Maurico Amster and Walter Reuter with a reprint of the “Cartilla Escolar Antifascista” from 1937.

An exhibition in Frankfurt am Main will soon be dedicated to the history of the anti-fascist school primer from 1937.