Dear Matilde: Letters fromthe Refugee Camps

Abstract

The letters sent by Spanish refugees to different aid committees, and found in the National Archives of France, help us better understand the hardships experienced in the internment camps. They also provide interesting facts about the education of children in the camps, and the relationship that the exiles had with the aid organizations such as the Comité de Ayuda a los Refugiados and the Commission d'Aide aux Enfants Espagnols Réfugiés en France. Matilde Huici very actively collaborated with both organizations. She was the addressee of many of the letters that Spanish mothers wrote from the camp asking for warm clothes and shoes for their children or requesting information about the situa- tion of their husbands, confined in other centres. Huici also served as an intermediary when, upon the beginning of the Second World War, the collaboration of Spanish refugees in the French economy was needed.