MERRY CHRISTMAS

My grandma's life: a difficult war

Josefa Rosales was born on 26^th May 1916 in Cordoba. The childbirth’s conditions were very poor at this time, so it was very difficult for her to survive. Her struggle with life started at the age of five when she miraculously recovered from tuberculosis. This fact was the beginning of her battle.

Josefa was nice and very cheerful. She had blue eyes and a beautiful smile. She had ten brothers and was the only daughter. Her family was so poor that she had to begin to work when she was three. She helped her parents and brothers to harvest in a farmhouse where she met Francisco Pérez, a farmer who was going to be the love of his life. They got married in 1934 and two years later, when she was twenty, the Spanish civil war broke out. The Republican people fought the Fascists, or in other words: the poor people were fighting the rich people.

In farmhouses the farmworkers rebelled againts their lords, this way her and her family had to run away. Francisco Pérez, her husband, went to the battlefront with some fighters to defend the Republic and Josefa Rosales decided to join them. She didn’t want to leave her husband alone because she couldn’t live without him, so she decided to risk her own life in order to not to separate from her love.

They travelled throughout Spain and they were fighting in different battles for three years: in Madrid, in Cantabria and, finally, in the Ebro’s battle where Republicans were defeated and she and her husband were captured and jailed. The next month she was forced to see Francisco’s public execution. Then, she lost the brightness of her eyes and her lovely smile.

Despite her love was cruelly executed, she never surrendered. She continued fighting and resisting the Fascist army alone. But two weeks later she realised that she was expecting a baby. She had to give birth in prison and she managed to grow her daughter up there until she was freed a in 1940.

She died in 1962 because of a high fever. Although she suffered a lot in life, she never gave it up and she always fought to feed her little daugter. So, she must be reminded as a strong and brave woman and also because of her continue struggle in life.