Cell number 2, ready to be tortured.
This is horrible. This is...
Oh my God, how perverse!
A bell to call the boys that were here...
The guard sitting there, reading A Bola...
Football always present!
If this was the only light, then this over here...
... didn't have any light!
And here were Agostinho Neto, Joaquim Pinto de Andrade
and so many others, being tortured.
No space even to breathe, this over here...
How awful, how awful. None of this...
None of this should have happened.
Thank God my parents didn't have to go through this,
or I wouldn't be here.
The hippopotamus...
Operation Angola 61.
There you go, making me come here, because you didn't tell me anything.
Isn't it, Mr. Jorge Hurst?
A letter to uncle Amílcar. Look:
"I am in Sèvres." Who am I?
Osvaldo da Silva Lopes or Lopes da Silva.
"... since 7-3-61, member of the group of 41 students..."
Yes, sir.
"I want to cooperate with PAIGCV."
CV. Guinea and Cape Verde.
"To the representatives of the United States of America in Spain."
That was...
You are under arrest!
Uncle Araújo,
Osvaldo Lopes da Silva
and the rest are all doctor's scribbling. You can't tell a word.
The bus...
DDR... Hey look...
I was also a pioneer in this, with a blue scarf.
The great escape.
So, we have to be here.
Here she is, Isabel Sá Hurst, from Guinea.
And Jorge, may God keep him.
Jorge Hurst.
Tomás de Medeiros... Well, this is my trunk.
So, uncle Rui must be here too.
Rui Voss Filomeno de Sá. Dibala.
"Information from the Ministry of Interior:
Forty one students, born overseas,
clandestinely crossed the border, last July,
with the help of a protestant pastor and three north-American students.
According to investigations,
the group traveled to France, using false safe-conducts,
issued by the Embassy of an African country in Paris."
CODENAME: ANGOLA Escape to Fight
"Until the lion tells its story,
the hunter will always have all the glory." African proverb
My name is Miguel Hurst, I'm an actor, stage director,
I have two children, Mara and Ricardo,
and two nationalities.
There are many like me:
we are Angolan and we are Portuguese, because that's how life forged us.
There's a story I don't know very well,
that's the story of my parents, and why they are in Germany,
why they were in Germany,
why I was born in Germany, me and my brothers.
Now, 54 years later, I'd like to know the motive of the escape,
how the escape happened,
to know why, the reason, the motivation,
the inner force that made them escape,
them and over 60 people, in this Salazar dictatorship,
and face once and for all
the struggle for independence of the Portuguese speaking countries in Africa.
Lilica is here, Boal...
I see Tomás de Medeiros... And where is Boal?
Boal is sitting over there.
- Miguel Hurst! - Are you Hurst's son?
- You're an artist? - Thank God!
A little less than you!
- I was never an artist! - Daddy was enough.
- And your wife Lilica? - She's over there!
- Right, she's over there! - Hey Luz, do you know who it is?
With that face, there's an actor in there, a good looking one...
- It has been a few years. - It's true. So, how are you doing?
- Are you the son of whom? - Of Jorge Hurst.
The Hurst?
- His exact face. - I'm his youngest.
The eyes, at least the eyes, are like Jorge Hurst's.
I'm Videira. The Videira... We were colleagues... in Coimbra...
- Miguel Hurst. - I'm Mário Assis.
... and the escape, he escaped with us too.
- Him and my mom, Isabel. - And Isabel.
Jorge Hurst. Bro Hurst, like the guys used to say.
Bro Jorge. Big party organizer, mate!
- That I know... - The logistics, mate.
Should I start with a fun part?
No one mentioned the extraordinary musical sessions
or balls held at the Imperial Students House.
These people, these colleagues, brought their music
and brought their cultural sessions,
that we, the University students,
used to go to with interest, curiosity...
And the African ladies there would dance, actually very well.
Them too.
But it's been 50 years
since the Imperial Students House was closed.
It's funny to think that it was created by the previous regime
with the purpose to fit in,
it made and allowed to make several exchanges,
in which,
the Portuguese interested in decolonization were interested in
and, therefore, we had a very deep connection,
particularly until the great escape of 1961.
In Coimbra, I took the first three years of Law School,
and came here for the fourth year,
and, on that same day,
I had an oral exam for 4th year's Family Law,
an order was given to me to take a train,
to Oporto, and there someone would fetch me.
"If by chance you meet someone you know,
pretend you don't know them, and so on."
When we arrived in Oporto, we were met by a determined number of people
even by an American citizens group.
Some of them are here now
and have been celebrating our escape for three years now.
- How are you doing? - Fine, thank you.
Look at these pictures, there's a film clip from our 50th Anniversary.
- In 2011. - In 2011, in Cape Verde islands.
Would you sit, please.
We separated 50 years ago - or got together 50 years ago -
and, 50 years later, here we are.
In other circumstances, with more years upon us,
the weight and burden of the years,
we may say, "Well, the adventure was worth it."
Naturally each of us tells the story in their own way.
So, everybody is invited to tell and narrate,
to investigate and find out their own stories.
It's very good we have this.
- It's a memory. - It's fantastic.
Not just of 2011, but also of 1961.
From 1961, with pictures.
You know, we're going to meet in a few minutes, Miguel.
- Miguel who? - Miguel Hurst.
He was one of the 41...
- It was his father? - The father of Miguel.
I'm very curious to see if he looks like his father.
- Miguel, nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you.
- It is a privilege to meet the son... - The privilege is mine.
- Now I am the curious one. - It's good that you have pictures.
- We didn't have many of those days. - I have better things than pictures.
Very well, let's see.
This is a member's card from the MPLA.
It was signed in Accra.
By Mário Pinto de Andrade.
This is from the university, the student card in Coimbra.
From the college. This is...
... from the Medical School.
You're lucky to have this, he could not have taken them to Spain and France.
- This... - There he is again.
General Student Union of Black Africa
under Portuguese colonial domination.
It's insane.
I have more pictures.
This is when they arrived and got married in Freiburg.
From the wedding in Germany.
PIDE/DGS headquarters. The New State's Politic Police.
- I think this was the main entrance. - Yes.
- Take a look at the plate. - There it is.
This was a center of torture as well.
It was a torture center, of course. People were jumping out the window.
In other countries, we know how important it is to maintain the place,
as in Argentina, for example.
- In Paraguay. - The Escuela Naval.
They made a place where people go in, and they see...
- To remember the horror and the terror. - At Tarrafal, also.
Yes, in Tarrafal it was...
It's so important for the new generations.
That letter is very funny...
This letter is from Osvaldo to Amílcar.
Commander Pedro Pires doesn't sign it.
He's not there. This has one more page...
- I had a strike! - You had a strike!
Here's the list of what we were able to do
with the names of those who legally got out and then the other various exits.
The names are all there!
In reality this CIMADE operation took 100 people out of here, almost.
- It was a huge operation! - It was a huge operation!
My relationship with Angolan students
and Angola's liberation struggle
passed by Iko Carreira.
We had, I don't know if good or bad luck,
of always being in the same unit.
Back then I was serving mandatory military service,
our specialty was radar control.
Back then we were in Montejunto and served over there.
We let the same space in Lisbon,
so our bedrooms were in the same house
and we used to go to the same, I'd say political, place,
the Imperial Students House,
and our relationships were very intimate and understanding.
Well, it was that relationship of understanding
that allowed me to take part of that escape too,
so, of that event,
Do you speak French?
- Yes, or English. - But I'd rather speak French.
- Who are you? - Adelina, Pascoal's wife.
Mocumbi.
- It's a pleasure. - Thank you.
- And you are...? - Bill Nottingham and Charles Harper.
- We were the leaders of the operation. - You helped him out of Spain.
- Out of prison in Spain. - Yes.
One of the photos shows him at the moment of his liberation.
In France.
When Mrs. Tânia Metzel, a French church pastor,
when she said, "You are free",
we took the photo and he was right in the front.
- Did you know this photo? - Yes, I'd seen it.
This shows we were part
of a much bigger resistance. - Much bigger. We were tiny.
It was a big resistance, absolutely big.
We were a tiny part of it.
With the struggle in Angola,
which was triggered in February 4th,
we realized
Africa was really moving towards independence.
So we started praying for independence,
in my room, mine and Pascoal Mocumbi's.
And we did one thing,
we pretended to hoist the flag,
at the beginning of the meeting,
which was pulling the window blinds up
and then, at the end of the meeting, we harnessed the flag.
We sung like this...
Which means, May God bless Africa,
Come, O Spirit, and bless Africa,
bless us, your children.
I had a home,
I had a furnished apartment, because I had gotten married two years before,
one child had been born,
but since February 4th, we tried to "get rid of" the child
and we called Nha Beba to take the girl away.
My mother went to visit us in Portugal to get to know her granddaughter.
Excited with her granddaughter, she thought about saying,
"I'll take the girl, if you let me."
Deep down, she was the one who asked and we gave in, with no resistance.
Liahuca contacted me,
he was my colleague, my friend, and used to frequent our home.
One or two days before he said to me,
"Get ready to leave on said day. Five kilos, maximum."
First, our exit was a denunciation,
it had the strength of a denunciation from colonial domination,
on the other hand, we were reinforcing the parties
which were taking their first steps.
We had gotten from the MPLA
a request that some of the more conscious elements
would go out of Portugal
to reinforce MPLA's Temporary Director Committee,
which in the end was made of 3 or 4 elements.
That's how we ended up in Germany
at the home of Luís de Almeida
and with him, we started working
on how to develop the idea that they've been having
of creating a student organization
from Portuguese colonies' students abroad.
And making a connection with the CEI, inside Portugal.
Finally, comes Desidério's and Luísa Gaspar's idea,
to contact the Frankfurt bishop
because we hadn't yet figured out the question of the student's exit.
Edmundo Rocha, because he knew me,
he knew I was in Germany,
he looked out for me,
and I got him in touch with Wunderlich bishop, in Frankfurt,
who also gave support, even money, and so on.
And this Methodist bishop
got in touch with Melvin Blake.
He was up to date with what was going on in the colonies,
especially Angola,
because he himself was a missionary in Angola for many years.
From then on he got in touch with the World Council of Churches.
They were touched
and asked for a specialized antenna for that sector, which is CIMADE.
Then they got in charge of doing the job of going to Portugal.
Before they asked us what were our contacts.
I sent them the contacts,
the name of João Vieira Lopes, his address and the password.
There was a password.
Sílvio de Almeida and I, said, "Look, we have a few contacts.
"When you get to Lisbon,
"we have Pedro António Filipe, who is our contact.
"In Coimbra, we have Daniel Chipenda, a well-known football player
and he knows everybody, all the students."
In Oporto, we had Muler Passos.
So, these are the three contact elements.
Then they'll get in touch with other students
to know who feels in danger and wants to get out.
When the events started in Angola, in Luanda,
on February 4th and March 15th, in the North of Angola,
the public reaction was very bad relatively to the African students.
"It's your fault my son, my cousin, my husband died."
We accompanied the escape group in 61.
I was in Paris, waiting.
You were in Paris...
At CIMADE, with pastor Jacques Beaumont.
Pastor Beaumont?
- He was our colleague. - Jacques Beaumont.
He died two years ago.
Luís de Almeida. Is he related to Sílvio de Almeida?
No.
Luís de Almeida.
Then you came on your own
to Paris in 61, too?
No, I was MPLA's representative in Germany.
That's what we call diaspora!
- Yes. - Was I well?
The Imperial Students House had something no one talks about.
That knowledge is within us,
because the CEI gave us the possibility of being together.
It was there, I can tell,
that I passed from one phase to the next of consciousness
of the colonial phenomenon,
by dealing with students from all of the Portuguese ex-colonies.
From India to Maputo, through Cape Verde, and so on.
And with a lot of students
also form Portugal who used to go to the CEI.
And my horizons opened up,
through the contact with others.
That's how it was.
- It's Jorge! - Take note, note it over there!
It's Jorge. Jorge Hurst.
- This is the escape! - This is ours.
Here's Paiva...
This is the big photo. We're all there.
Mrs. Luz is there.
- I'm there. - Look, Guida is there!
No, that's Isabel, that's my mom.
No, Guida is here. Excuse me! No, Guida is this one.
- It's that one with the dress... - That's Ilda.
Young Pedro Pires!
We're comrades. From the operation...
We're comrades from the operation! No doubt!
Chissano, in his book, says I didn't tell him when we were going.
I told him I couldn't tell, I wasn't allowed to.
No, we had to keep it secret.
Very secret.
We knew we could be arrested,
so we adopted the basic principle of the clandestine,
one only speaks to two
and confined to a triangle
the knowledge of what was going on.
The whole thing started because one of the group, called Pedro Filipe,
contacted the World Council of Churches, in Geneva,
saying, "We're under pressure, here.
Please help us get out, cross the border clandestinely."
The World Council turned to a French organization, CIMADE.
Bill was the associate general-secretary, at the time.
It was the "Comité Inter Mouvements Auprès des Évacués".
My being Brazilian, speaking Portuguese, made it easy when we arrived.
I was dressed up like a rich American tourist,
I had two passports, Brazilian and American,
with a hat like this...
Jacques was also aMonsieur français,diplomat.
Jacques had already come once, in May,
to talk to them, and to be known by them.
They wanted to know all about CIMADE,
he wanted to know who are these people,
not only the protestants, but the others, who were political figures.
I just finished the Medical course and was already doing my internship,
and got a military notice to present myself at the headquarters in 15 days,
to be enlisted in the army.
I took that problem to Chipenda,
told him I had a passport from 1958, because I was at the Expo,
as a member of Coimbra's Orfeão Académico.
I got permission to get out,
with a mission to go to CIMADE,
and to see if there were conditions for more to get out,
or how many could get out
and if we weren't being mislead
in the question of the chance of a student general escape,
especially Angolans, but all who wished to get out too.
They were also suspicious about who we were.
Of course they were. Of course...
- Five Americans... - They could be giving everything away.
Maybe we were here for more information.
- Yes. - We could be CIA.
I was studying in Oporto
and I'm contacted by Manuel Lima de Azevedo,
who was the coordinator of Oporto's city area
who gets me up to date with the situation
with the start of all the turmoil that happened in Angola,
the 4th of February,
the independence movements in Congo Léopoldville,
and there was a possibility that we, Angolan students,
who back then were very near our military service age,
of being incorporated to be sent to the colonies
to fight a war against our own people,
and there was that possibility of getting out.
I was drafted,
and approved for all military service,
but because I presented my student papers
they postponed it to the following year.
Naturally, the next year, once again I presented the papers
and once again I was postponed.
I was in that postponement situation for two years.
He said, "You're doomed, you're leaving for Angola soon."
The message was that whomever had the documents
to support that exit, they should try it,
but, if not, there were other alternatives.
When I asked for my passport, when I asked for a visa for France,
PIDE summoned me.
Why did I wish to go to France?
And they asked me, "How are you getting to France,
"if your husband just finished his degree, doesn't work,
how come you have the money to go to France?"
And I said, "No, my father helped me."
"Your father..."
Then they asked me several questions,
"Who is your father? Where does he live? What does he do?"
I answered the questions.
Me and my husband had agreed on what we were going to say,
so we wouldn't contradict ourselves at the PIDE.
And that was it. I said I was going to pay a promise.
We managed to get the passport.
We informed Lima de Azevedo that we had the passport,
me and Alberto Assis,
and we were given an address
so, when we got to Paris, in case we arrived,
to get in touch with people at that address,
which turned out to be the CIMADE.
We arrived in Paris,
it was drizzling,
we got our luggage
and sat on the luggage waiting for those who were fetching us.
We didn't know who it was.
A lady in a Volkswagen arrived, one of those little ones.
I guess she exchanged passwords with my comrade.
And that was it, she said, "Get in the car."
We got in the car she drove us to Sèvres,
where there was the CIMADE, the CIMADE center.
I arrived in Paris with my wife,
and the only coordinate I had was a telephone number.
So, I called that number.
- I think I got off at Gare du Nord -
and one lady answered, whom later I got to know and admire,
that was the associate director of CIMADE.
She told me,
"You get a taxi, give him this address
"and say it's paid on destination, and when you arrive we will pay."
I didn't even had any money to pay for a taxi!
And that was it.
- Hotel Eduardo VIII, Harper and Beaumont. - We stayed there one night.
- Did you already rent the cars? - Two nights.
I had the next day to rent the cars,
big black cars, like powerful people.
- Money people. - They advised us to do that.
The next day, we started taking some of the people,
Angolans, Mozambicans, etcetera, up there.
Themot d'ordrewas discretion, keep to ourselves,
follow the instructions of the Committee.
The political committee gave me a list they said, "On the corner between..."
Now memorize that and destroy the list.
In case we were caught ten minutes later by some PIDE.
So, we memorized it.
Under pressure, you remember everything.
We went to different places, we waited in the car, on the corner,
for five minutes and, if they didn't come,
we'd go off again to some other place.
Pedro Filipe,
who was an Angolan coordinating that residence,
gave me very brief instructions.
I should go to Avenida da República,
to a corner with another street,
I followed that street until it crossed Avenida da República,
where I was supposed to meet someone.
He didn't want to tell me if that person was white, black,
mulatto, fat, thin...
There should be someone
and everything should be obvious, I shouldn't have to speak.
Bento Ribeiro contacted me,
but something terrible happened to me.
It's the story about the Creole and the Portuguese.
When he came to give me the instructions,
he said I should be two or three days later,
in front of the Santa Maria Hospital at noon.
No, he didn't say noon, he said at twelve O'clock.
Cape-Verdeans didn't use to say twelve O'clock
until now I think they still don't say twelve O'clock, they say noon.
So he said 12 O'clock, and here we say 12 O'clock or two O'clock,
I thought two O'clock. I didn't go at 12, but at two O'clock.
I got along very well with the Angolans in Coimbra,
Chipenda was my best friend and a frequent customer at the CEI
and exactly Videira and Chipenda
were the ones responsible for organizing the escape in Coimbra.
It was them who invited me out.
So, one week later, or less,
I was getting out of the CEI, and Pedro Filipe told me like this,
"I know you missed your trip the other day, I have instructions for you.
"So, your course has just changed.
"You'll meet, two days from now, at 10 or 11 O'clock,
"at Santa Apolónia train station.
Henrique..." Is it Henrique? Onambwa.
"Henrique Santos will drive a group to Coimbra,
"and after Coimbra there will be a contact
"and you should leave for Oporto.
So, go with him because things are under control."
When I arrived at the place,
there was a guy who looked like a student too,
and he was mulatto.
But, before I arrived, he got into a taxi.
He was leaving.
Well, I stayed there a while, to see if someone else would come,
but as no one came and the train departure time was getting near,
I decided to get on the first taxi that came along,
to go to the train station and catch the train to Oporto.
We hired the services of a smuggler, in Galicia,
in Arcádia, near Pontevedra,
who normally smuggled cotton, coffee, dry goods.
He said, "Look, a coffee bag is so much,
but you're with blacks and that's very expensive, my boy!"
Jacques Beaumont was very good, he was an old poker player.
So, Jacques said,
"But they're quality people, quiet, they won't scream at night."
And that was it.
This is the statue from Cutileiro, an homage to the 25th of April,
the Carnation Revolution.
We met in a park like this one, at night, on the day we arrived,
on the 14th of June, from Paris.
- You and Jacques Beaumont. - Me and Jacques Beaumont.
To set the last details of the operation.
PIDE finally never knew,
during the two weeks this was happening.
We took 60 students.
- This is seriously a lot. - They disappeared.
Salazar and Nogueira, in one of those informatic telegrams,
accuse the USA of organizing this.
He called us Kennedy's Peace Corps.
It was during the time when John Kennedy was president.
We were at the hotel where Jacques and I stayed, on the 20th of June.
- This was the second time in Lisbon? - The second time.
We had already taken the 19 first group up to Oporto.
And then across to Spain, where Bill was waiting for them.
But then we got information
that there were more people, wanting to leave.
When we got this information, that we had to take them,
Pedro Filipe and the Committee said, "We have more than 40 who want to go up."
So, we said we take two cars
and they decided to take others discreetly on the train to Oporto.
On the arranged day, we went to Santa Apolónia,
traveled on theRocket for the first time
and, in Santa Apolónia, we met Pedro Pires
and Van Dunen and his wife.
We had indication not to get familiar with any one,
to ignore each other.
So, it was different. The first time was more organized than the second.
Not better organized,
but it was a surprise that the first one got across without any problems.
Into France. That was...
There weren't any problems it's exaggeration,
but we made it. - Yes, we made it.
Then the problems came with the second group?
Not so much from this side, because we were going so fast.
The political police, here, were unable to catch up.
They didn't know what was happening,
but they did know that people were disappearing.
Days before, Chipenda had been arrested.
Chipenda, Araújo,
António França...
Seems like it was Ndalu, right?
Those were arrested days before.
It wasn't the day of our escape, but it was included.
António Santos França, also a player at the Académica,
had an exam that day. He didn't go with us, he stayed.
And PIDE thought they were the heads of all the organization
and the organization was headless.
I believe they were waiting for the reaction.
With the arrest, they were waiting for the reaction,
preventing the students from leaving, which didn't happen.
I think practically until the end of June they kept leaving.
Through several ways, with passport, some without,
others by car, other by train, and so on...
To show relaxation for the PIDE,
we would visit our friends in prison in Coimbra.
At Inspector Sachetti's office itself.
On the day I left Coimbra,
I was at the office talking with Sachetti,
with our friends.
They didn't know we were involved, at the time.
We found out later how they found out.
In 1965, the details...
Four years later. It's a lot of bureaucracy.
There was a third person, a Frenchman, a friend of Jacques Beaumont,
a high power of attorney in the bank, his name was Lewin Vidal.
During the day he was a banker,
and then at night he put a hat on, not to be recognized,
and helped some of these Angolan leaders in Portugal
to find out some of the best places to be picked up.
We're leaving Lisbon. It was here where we picked up the first people.
In different places,
very discreet places.
We fetched them in different places, throughout the morning of the 17th.
Then we just took off. We left Lisbon.
On the 16th,
I was asked to stay at home,
because a group of students would pass by in transit outwards.
So, yes sir, I stayed.
They were at my place, Jorge Valentim,
Jerónimo Wanga and one more person, whose name I forgot.
On the eve, because we left on a Saturday, the 17th of June,
on the eve, I mean, at night,
also a bit nervous for leaving the family behind,
especially because my mother
had just had a stomach surgery, three weeks earlier,
my two sisters and my brother,
then I could let it out and tell
that we were jumping out and such,
I explained it in two words.
It was then that my brother Augusto said,
"Excuse me, Pópilas,
"I was also contacted
and I also had instructions not to tell anybody, any one."
So we arranged that my mother and two sisters
would travel nicely by train,
because it was easier for the ladies,
not so hard to get a passport.
But for men,
if we hadn't done the military service,
we could never have a Portuguese passport.
Because then we were Portuguese.
We went together, following each other, on the road to Coimbra.
In a way Jacques had already been on that road,
because he went up earlier, in May, with Pedro Filipe.
There were 16 students in Coimbra.
And there were 12 students in Oporto.
They started studying in Lisbon.
Medical School, both of them, Jorge and Isabel.
And then they came here, to Coimbra.
In this struggle...
I don't understand it and, really, I'm very curious about it.
Children of bourgeois families, very well educated...
I can't imagine how, especially my mom,
could embark on this adventure.
Look at this.
It's the university where Isabel, my mother,
and Jorge, my father, they studied here.
It's fantastic. I don't recall it at all,
we didn't pick anybody up at the center of Coimbra.
- I think they went from here to Oporto. - That's right.
Them and the others from the group.
I was in Coimbra, as a student,
celebrating that night,
the passing of another graduation exam.
Around 10 in the evening, José Araújo suddenly appeared,
fellow comrade, unfortunately already gone,
who quickly updated me on the objectives
and asked for a quick answer.
I immediately answered.
Coimbra, Oporto...
And the escape had already started.
Jorge, always very bangão, a very good dancer,
wasn't a revolutionary prototype, but here they are, in this escape.
Too late to go back.
In direction to...
To freedom, if we can call it that.
Here are these two friends sleeping.
I have more questions, let's see if they can answer them.
In this city of Oporto,
I can't understand how 40 Africans, black,
managed to escape.
It wasn't normal to have so many black people at the same time,
here in this Northern city.
Let's see what these two sleepy heads will tell me.
Thank you, guys, I think it's the right hotel.
You were sleeping all the way, and I understand you're tired.
But I think it's here, the hotel Infante de Sagres.
I think that's the place with this beautiful door, right?
This is where we stayed, at the hotel Infante de Sagres.
It was pretty expensive.
- You and Jacques Beaumont stayed here. - That's right.
It makes me very sentimental, to think about him,
but it's obvious you were really playing to be a rich American tourist.
- That's right. - To come to this place.
Which is a good cover.
Let's see the luxury inside.
If you were playing to be rich guys...
- Hello, good evening. - Good evening.
I'm here for a sentimental reason.
I stayed here, at this hotel, with pleasure, many years ago.
It was in 1961.
With a colleague, Mr. Beaumont, and myself.
So, I just wanted to say that it was a great pleasure
and wanted to ask if we could go inside and see it a little bit.
- Of course, take your time. - Yes? Thank you very much.
Let's see.
Well... You had a good time here.
Zé Araújo told me I should leave the next day,
on the first train connecting Coimbra-Oporto,
he gave me a 20 escudos bill - it was real money at the time -
and informed me that, at the station, there would be someone waiting,
and that someone would take me to a guesthouse in Oporto,
and in the evening, around 9 O'clock,
at Oporto's Café Majestic would be someone who would take me on the big adventure.
- I recognize this Majestic Café. - It's marvelous.
How did you find it?
I was guided by a local friend of the students,
who lived here and was a student as well.
He didn't go with us, but it was safe for him to come with me.
I recall very clearly we drove up this street,
there were not those white umbrellas then,
I parked right in front, I was on the driver's seat,
and I looked up and there was the Majestic Café.
I didn't come in, my friend came in,
to pick up... - To call him out.
- A great spot. - To pick up Medeiros.
Twenty escudos were enough to have lunch
and eat a sandwich at the Café Majestic.
I went to the Café Majestic, went in,
at the back room, on the left,
I ordered my sandwich and a glass of beer,
I ate, paid, and waited.
I think some came all the way from Lisbon on the train,
changed in Coimbra and came here.
And they had to meet mysterious people all along the way.
Some of them they recognized, and some of them they didn't.
I met Lima de Azevedo in Coimbra
and he told me we had to go ahead to Oporto
and only in Oporto we would get instructions.
We went to Oporto and he gave us the name of the cafe,
of a basement where we would stay.
We went to the basement,
we were arriving,
when I saw 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 people,
I got up, went to Lima and said,
"Lima, pardon me, aren't there too many blacks together?"
We were taken at the train station in Oporto,
I believe by the African Neto,
who drove us to some square
where we waited.
Did you know, we waited there for instructions to go to the border,
up to river Minho to take the jump,
to cross to the other side of the border.
Did Jacques Beaumont pick up anybody here at the Majestic Café?
At the Majestic, I don't think so.
- Other places? - Yeah, there were other places.
Let me show you Videira, at Praia, five years ago.
Well, later on, will you lend me that, so I can see it?
The cars came from the South, from Coimbra and Lisbon,
they broke down, broke the...
... they had a flat tire,
which made us wait until three in the morning.
At that time, when somebody arrived,
and I saw it was an American car, a Chevrolet,
I watched the door opening and went inside,
but I didn't know who was inside.
I continued to the place.
Arrived 5 minutes before 5,
looked around and saw a car stopping.
The car stopped, I looked inside,
and inside the vehicle were Iko Carreira, Fernando Paiva
and Ilda Carreira.
I got inside... This was one minute.
The driver was Mr. Jacques Beaumont,
the president of CIMADE.
I was wandering in the streets,
and a fellow stands right in front of me...
It was Roy, pretending to be a PIDE, and I was being arrested.
And it's Roy who gives me the instructions
on how and where to catch the car.
He gave me the car's plate, told me to get inside
and wait. And so I did.
I believe it was a DS.
We had a long way to go to Braga.
- On the National 101. - Estrada Nacional 101.
I felt they were getting a little bit more relaxed,
but the more difficult was yet to come.
- Who was in the car? - There were two trips.
- Two trips, OK. - Or several trips.
In one of them, we entered in Braga
and it was kind of strange,
because suddenly we came upon the Festas de São João.
We plunged into... I mean, we had to slow down.
Into this crowd, a huge mass of people,
having a good time.
The windows were closed,
because the guys in the back didn't want to be seen.
Then the children came, and I heard them saying, looking in the back,
"Pelé! Pelé! Pelé!"
- This young Brazilian football player. - Because the car...
And one of our friends
who was supposed to leave one day, he didn't know which,
he was Francisco Mendonça,
who lived in Braga and was also about to leave
he got scared.
He didn't know we were supposed to pick somebody up.
I think Jacques Beaumont's car had room for one more.
- Was he Francisco Gonçalves...? - Mendonça.
Yes, there was a Francisco Mendonça.
He was to meet him, pick him up with nobody in thepraça,
but he saw all these people and he got rather scared, we heard later.
- Of course. - And he did not come to the car.
- He did not go to the car? - No.
- You followed without him? - Well...
- We had to go without him. - We had to.
We also got scared,
and pretended we didn't know each other, he got on with his life,
we saw from him a situation like...
We went on, we stopped to spend a little time,
and went on with our journey.
You came from Oporto to Braga with two cars.
How many students did you carry in a car?
You talked a 19, the first time.
- There were 19, the first time. - In two cars?
- Actually, yes. - Two cars, two trips.
- In two trips. - Two trips from Oporto.
From Oporto to the border at River Minho.
- To the border at River Minho. - We had to do it over again until the 41.
- How were the students dressed? - The students...
- They were very well dressed. - Very well dressed.
Jacques told me on the phone that they looked like Princeton finalists.
- What does that mean? - Very well dressed, an elite.
They looked like very rich people, they were very well dressed.
- They were very well dressed. - In shirts and ties
or buttoned up polo shirts... - And looked very intelligent.
many wore glasses. They looked like intellectuals.
They had polished shoes, each carried a small bag.
A sports bag.
They would go inside the car and we'd tell them to sit in the back.
They didn't have to sit on anybody's lap, for instance.
I think there should be about ten people inside the car.
I was laying down on the car floor with legs on top of me,
but there were many people inside the same car,
we took off to the Northern border.
We finally arrived from Braga on this road, which is a long road,
and we were approaching the place
where the smuggler said he'd leave his nephew,
in some trees, to the right of this highway.
We came here, and we turned right.
We were still in the car, I'm kind of reliving this,
he said there were about one hundred or two hundred meters beyond,
at a given place, he told me a tree, which would be taller,
next to the woods.
He'd step out in a white shirt.
I remember that, in a white shirt.
He stepped out, and we pulled up over here.
There he was. Jacques and I pulled our cars over,
we let our people out,
and we hid the cars in the woods,
and accompanied them across the meadows.
Monção was not there. All the way down to the Minho River.
We started down the mountain right away,
we crossed until the river margin,
Minho River's.
There we stayed for an hour or so, until five in the morning.
The smugglers disappeared, we stayed.
During that time, we couldn't make any noise.
They told us, "You stay here, quietly we're leaving only in the morning."
We couldn't smoke, we couldn't speak...
And I, casually, saw the frontier guards,
the carabineers, on horseback,
and they crossed, one to this side, the other over there.
So, that happened for 12 days, from the 17th of June to the 29th of June.
And it worked out without any problems!
After this crossing it was when we boarded the boat
that took us to the other side. Which actually was leaking.
So, with a can, we needed to take the water out
and empty it in the river without any noise.
Then we had to dip it in the water and lift it.
It made something like...
It didn't make much noise.
And we managed to cross to the other side.
And so we passed, passed, passed...
We gathered in some small woods.
When we were all there, we started running
towards the bus waiting for us a bit further away.
We were a subgroup.
We were there with Virgínia,
Dr. Liahuca's wife, who was pregnant,
but she went up that slope, that mountain,
with an agility to make anyone envious.
At the Spanish side, there were new smugglers,
who took us up more or less 45 minutes,
and we were settled in a barn.
If I'm not mistaken, it was a sheep shed,
I don't know if it was abandoned or not,
but there were no sheep, nor goats,
but it looked like a sheep or goat shed.
And so we spent the rest of the night, until dawn.
Oh my God! I will never in my life ever forget the sheep skin smell.
Because I left with the only jeans I owned at the time
which took the smell and I had to toss the trousers after that.
The cars that took us to another house, far, far away, arrived.
I believe they made us think it belonged to a peasant,
or to someone who lived there, Spanish,
who gave us food and took us to the attic.
It had one of those holes with a ladder,
and the ladder could be removed,
he'd put the ladder in, we'd go up, closed the door and took the ladder.
He'd take the food there, and remove the ladder afterward.
Then we had a problem one night.
Because, we came with eight people,
four in Jacques' car, four in my car,
and he was not there.
We waited, we waited, we waited maybe half an hour,
I asked the students, would you to go back into the woods
and we parked our cars way, way back.
Jacques stayed with them,
and I went, with my white linen, on a full moon,
I took the risk...
I knew that... Here we are, that's right.
I knew he lived down that street, he'd told me that.
All the dogs barked, you know the story.
I found him, a neighbour came out and told me where he was.
He came back with us and explained he had left a message at the hotel,
telling us not to come tonight.
What to do?
We returned to Oporto
and on the way back, one of the cars going with us had an accident.
I believe it was Lilica and Boal's car.
Entering a roundabout, they blew a tire.
There were two policemen across, on the other side, who came over and helped.
Helped him fix the tire.
- The police? - Yeah.
Jacques had never fixed a tire before in his life, he just got his driver's license.
They were very helpful, they saw the people maybe in the back,
but they thought they were passengers, normal.
Africano,
when we couldn't cross the previous day,
the same night he goes back to the barracks in Aveiro, I believe he was in Aveiro,
back to the barracks in Aveiro to present himself
and the next night he comes to join us to cross the river.
I think we had one of the people had to go back to the military barracks
he checked in again, and the next night, we came with everybody and it worked...
Was it an immature attitude? Well, maybe...
But it shows the mindset, and determination of Africano Neto,
it shows our mindset.
He is the perfect symbol of our mindset.
Finally we're coming here to the place.
You chose a very romantic place to cross.
This is the definitive moment of fleeing Portugal into Spain.
Portugal with it's dictator, Spain with it's dictator.
We knew that means more guards protecting this.
I think that this is the curve where we took the students down.
About one kilometer away, it's very steep there.
And it's steep on the other side.
Monção, Minho River.
I never saw my dad swimming
and my mom wasn't the best of swimmers either.
The spent one whole evening hidden in a bush,
a dark night,
in one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen
and which reminds me of my mom who used to like very green places,
with a little stream flowing. Minho River, right in front of me.
And they, hidden for hours and hours, in the dark.
Their adrenaline must have peaked, their fear must have been immense.
What did Isabel feel?
On top of all that, carrying my brother inside her,
in his first month. Not knowing how to swim...
- The first time was on the 17th of June. - I remember that.
I dropped off up the river, a few kilometers,
I dropped off the first package of students, Jacques Beaumont was with me.
My job was to come and tell them,
because Bill and the three guys, were on the other side, in Pontevedra,
and we had to get the message to them that we deposited them...
And we had to get over there and get them.
We had to get them.
I came over at 5 in the morning,
spent all night waiting, looking,
and came across.
This became a pattern,
because I came across between the 17th and 29th of June, twelve days,
I went across five times, back and forth.
- Ten times. - So, 10 times.
My story, because we had to go through the customs post,
I was a tourist, in a big car,
there was no problem, they'd stamp the visa,
but on the third time they were saying, "Do you have business over here?"
I answered no, that I was visiting some relatives.
I said my mother is Brazilian, but she has a Portuguese background
and she told me when I come to Portugal to do tourism, then I had to visit her relatives,
on both sides of the Minho River.
I have the passport here, with all the stamps.
The last day,
I took the car with Jacques Beaumont and we went...
After we paid the last money to the smuggler,
who lived in a little town called Arcádia, around Tuy.
Here it is, "Tuy-Bridge Police Station."
Exactly, the last exit.
We...
- Paid our last... - Escudos.
One thousand escudos per student.
60 students, 60 thousand escudos.
After depositing my first students there,
I drove through Vigo, heading for Pontevedra,
where I had a meeting with Bill,
to tell Bill, as early as possible,
that the students had successfully been transferred to the barn
and they were waiting there,
and he had to get his drivers from Pontevedra down to Vigo
and then East, along the Minho River,
the roads on the Spanish side, to get there at one O'clock.
I came out here from Pontevedra, with Kim, Dick and Dave,
after we got your first note saying to pick them up about one O'clock.
The barn where they were hidden was right alongside the road
and then the place where they'd come through,
was in the little boats you described several times,
the smuggler was somehow able to row them across,
and then they came up and we put them in the barn.
A tiny little shed, a farmer's shed,
which was probably not no more than 10 by 20 meters large, with no windows.
The smuggler drove us down,
he was on a motor scooter, a Vespa, I believe.
And we went in the cars behind him and he drove us down the road
to the shed where the students were.
Then they opened the door and came out looking somewhat frightened,
like, "Where are we? What are we doing?"
We said, "Quickly, in the car." Five in each car,
we turned around and started the journey towards France.
The first time it was new to all of us,
but we came back several times afterward, for the rest of them, the next week.
This is the first time I've seen the river, from the barn it wasn't visible.
They came straight from the other side where they came off,
and came up here, as they were told, straight to the barn.
How many times did you come here to pick some up?
I didn't count, but six or seven times,
because there were different groups
and I got notes Chuck left me,
and instructions from Jacques Beaumont,
he was even interested in telling us what to do if we got into trouble...
He said, "Don't be angry, be polite, be friendly,
"don't try to bribe anybody,
"and if you don't get out of trouble, you call Paris
or you notify some of our people who are waiting to hear from you."
It's tremendous that you found me here, at the Parador Nacional in Pontevedra.
I hadn't seen you since I recruited the other three drivers.
I got Dave and Dick, who came to hear Tânia Metzel, at a prayer service,
and then I had to find a fourth driver, and that was Kim Jones.
It was like 10 O'clock in the evening, and he said,
"Tomorrow late afternoon, we need to leave."
We would be gone at least one week, maybe longer,
You couldn't tell anybody, not even Margarit, where you were going.
But we need you very badly.
He described to me that they needed some drivers
to drive several Angolan students
who were going to be taken out of Portugal into the South of Spain
and they needed someone to drive them in the length of Spain,
until Hendaye, in France, to cross the border there.
He spent about half an hour talking to me, describing it,
and I said almost immediately, "Why not?"
So, we met late at night at the train station, took the train down,
rented the cars in Bayonne,
Dave and I went off together, then came here, on the following day.
The others showed up,
they were at a different hotel, because we didn't want to attract attention
and we waited until you showed up
to tell us that you'd delivered the students in Monção, in the barn.
We drive out there and, first David dodges a motorcycle.
Just as I drove up to the barn in this Citroen DS,
which has a special hydraulic suspension system,
my brake went all the way to the floor, I completely lost any braking thing,
Scared the heck out of me.
But then, the fluid suspension thing kicked in
and I had more brakes than I needed.
Another accident happened in the same first trip,
when the Axel fell out of its position in the rear of Kim's car.
We were coming through a town in the mountains,
on a Sunday afternoon,
and chassis on the bottom of the car broke down.
It went down into the street and we were stuck there on this mountain road,
on a Sunday afternoon, six of us.
Two of the students hitchhiked into the nearest town,
a small town.
We started making the traditional hitchhiking gesture
and after ten minutes, who stopped was a Guardia Civil's car.
As we spoke something between French and Spanish,
I could make myself understood that we needed a mechanic.
We waited, and waited until they came back
in a Police jeep, with two policemen.
When we got to the front of our car, where Kimball and his friends were,
I saw on their faces they were livid to see us arriving with the civil guard.
They thought we were, quote, "jail birds."
Those days, policemen all looked like soldiers,
all had big automatic guns and everything.
It was during the Franco regime.
They came back and were looking around. There were two mechanics.
The mechanics started looking at the car...
Actually, one mechanic walked around to the back of the car
and in the back, on the top, just underneath the window,
he saw a paper that said something about Lisbon.
He said, "Oh, Lisbon... Must be Angolan students."
Then he made some statement about the Americans
doing something interesting with Angolan students.
The two soldiers were standing right nearby, they didn't seem to care.
That was a moment when we thought...
They towed the car to their workshop, their garage,
and this taking about 3 to 4 hours,
Kimball said, we hadn't eaten, we were going to Pepita's restaurant
and there we ate, I still remember, filled peppers,
something very comforting, and a little of the local wine.
When we arrived in Oviedo, in the middle of the night,
I noticed, when I go over the streetcar tracks, there's a funny noise.
The mudguards had crunched against the ground, at the streetcar things.
I said, "What do we do now?"
Here's another one of those miracles.
I look up, across the of the street, at 2:30 in the morning,
the Citroen garage, with the light on.
We go over and the guy says, we'll fix it, the workers will be here in the morning.
So we slept in the car and then we drove on to San Sebastian.
Then we met up there, and went on to the frontier at Irún.
We drove up about half way to the border and stopped at a lookout.
Bill Nottingham had all the papers.
They were papers who had photos of different Africans,
just try to match them up as well as you can
because the people at the border probably won't know the difference.
I took the papers and met an officer
he became very anxious, "How come there is no stamps
"showing these people came in to Spain last week,
although there is one in your passport?"
He talked to one of the border guards
the man said you'll have to speak to the comissario of the police.
So, Bill went into another building, the comissario came and spoke with him.
I saw a gentleman there, whom later I saw over on the French side, walking around.
- With his eye on us. - He was looking at you.
Anyhow, this gentleman used the telephone to call Madrid, I suppose.
very nervous, but he said,
"OK, go ahead." For some reason he said, "Go as fast as you can!"
He wasn't there more than 30 minutes, tops, maybe less.
Then he got out and said, "All right, let's go."
We told everybody to have their CIMADE papers ready
telling CIMADE would take care of them in France.
We crossed the border and there were we in France,
the 20 students and the four of us.
We felt victorious, "Hey! We did it! It happened."
We were successful.
We had a nice dinner together, in Hendaye,
and I go and call up Jacques.
I suspect to the hotel in Oporto, but I don't know for sure.
I called him up and told him the 19 packages were on the train for Paris,
and he said, "Well, good."
Maybe he said "congratulations", I don't know.
But then he said, "Come back, we're gonna do it again."
I remember that, I was with him.
And I said,
"Jacques, I can't go in there to the officer again with false papers!"
And he said, "Débrouille toi."
- Work it out. - Work it out.
We had to change three of the cars
and the four of us drove back to Pontevedra to begin all over again.
At 2 p.m., came two cars.
Two or three, I don't recall.
And took us to San Sebastian.
Then, when we had to go back, we didn't know how many would be there,
but we found out there were being 12,
in a period of time there were 39 and so on...
Dave and Kim picked up their students, four or five each,
and they drove them to Pastor Vidal's house, in San Sebastian,
to wait for the rest of us.
When they crossed the bridge in Pontevedra,
I gave Kim a note, saying,
"I'm sorry, but we've got so many you and Dave have to come right back."
For me, that was the low point.
Because I was already exhausted starting the second trip,
and he's saying, when you get to, 900 km from here,
turn around and come right back again, and there'll be a third group.
Kim and Dave came back,
loaded up
and came through to San Sebastian for a third time.
That was the maximum.
I realised Dick and I would have to go and come back, and go again
to take all these people we had now.
- There were 19 left. - Yes, there were 19 left.
So, I went and rented a bus.
We all stayed at the house of a protestant pastor,
for one week, more or less,
from the day we left until the 29th.
Why this?
Because the remaining groups were leaving every day,
or every other day, I don't know,
and on the 29th we all met
to follow to Irún.
Down there is Arcádia.
Arcade, in Spanish.
That's where the smuggler lived and his family.
We had dinner there with him, in the end, we left a whole lot of students.
It's a pity they're working on it.
But normally, when you were here in 1961, I saw your photo here, in Compostela.
Yeah, that's right.
Each one of the drivers wanted to come and visit the cathedral,
because that's the most famous thing in the area.
Either coming or going.
And I think maybe Kim did it once with somebody in there, in his car.
But Dick, with the bus, made a special point of coming here,
because we were calling that a religious pilgrimage.
That was our cover.
We would drive one day, stay overnight,
drive a second day and wind up in Pontevedra.
Coming the other way, it was always straight through,
at night, anywhere from 16 to 18 hours.
Joni went in my car.
So, Vieira Lopes and Virgínia Carvalho, his wife, both went.
Joni always had to take some pills so he wouldn't talk.
Because one couldn't speak Portuguese and he could just start talking.
And we had to, during the ride, talk to a minimum.
They told me they were giving him Fenergan or something like that.
When we got to Vidal's, he said, go on over,
because obviously he couldn't continue to have 41 people in his house.
So, Chuck... Or should I call you Roy Harper?
The students knew you as Roy Harper, right?
In Portugal I was known as Roy and in Brazil.
Roy or Chuck, this way, you did it also?
We were still in Pontevedra, in Arcádia, with Dick's car.
We set off early, I think it was on the 29th.
We headed straight for Pastor Vidal's, in San Sebastian.
When we got to Pastor Vidal's house,
somehow he got to know they had been put in prison over night.
Bill again with the papers,
this time I think it was from the Congolese embassy,
and he had to go to the same building and talk to the border patrol person.
We and the students went and sat in cafes, there were some cafes and we sat there.
Everybody was pretty relaxed,
we were anticipating this was going to go smoothly,
in fact, some of the students began singing.
I can remember the song they were singing. They were using the tables like drums
and they were singing this song "Muxima".
I remember the song.
We ordered, started eating
until someone, Mário Clington, started singing.
We didn't finish the meal, we didn't finish the song,
because we were surrounded by the police vans, which came to arrest us.
We came over here, to this comissaria in our three cars
and the Police had to bring the rest of the students.
They parked us along the curb
and suddenly, a whole lot of policemen came out and got around us,
and made the students bring their gym bags
in there to be examined.
We went in this way and in the large room,
you had all the students and the inspecting officers.
I was in this room, with a person behind a desk
and a detective next to me, who was typing
whom he called Jean Gabin.
At this point, everyone was very nervous.
The students were much more nervous than we were,
they had much more at stake.
Especially those who were deserters of the army.
If they returned to Portugal, they could have been shot or whatever.
So, they were very, very nervous.
In fact, a couple of them had papers on them
that showed that they were Angolan or Portuguese
and they were eating the papers
so there wouldn't be any evidence when they were questioned.
Suddenly one of the students came, he said, "Pastor Bill, Pastor Bill!"
He told me in French, "I have a pistol in my bag!"
I asked him, "Why did you bring a pistol for?"
- Who was it? - Iko Carreira.
I brought one of the inspectors in and said there was a pistol in here.
He got it off, was very surprised and angry,
I brought it over to the leader behind the desk, and I said,
"These people didn't know what to expect,
"they were afraid and brought a gun because they didn't know what was going to happen,
and here it is."
He took it, opened the drawer, put it in there, and that's the last we heard of it.
It was pretty scary to be in the hands of the Spanish police,
but everybody was disciplined, and everybody did what they were told,
"You've got to show them your papers from CIMADE signed by Pastor Boegner,
which says that you'll be given support in France, by CIMADE."
Of course that paper had their correct identity on it.
There weren't many Africans in Europe
and, suddenly, there's a group that crosses over, and then another.
When we were crossing, we sparked the police's curiosity.
It was when they discovered we weren't the said Senegalese
who came from Santiago de Compostela to cross over to France,
and took us to prison, some in handcuffs.
I was handcuffed with someone, a man I don't recall who he was anymore,
in an open truck
and then they placed women on one side and men on another side.
There were ten women,
one pregnant
and there was Joni, João Vieira Lopes's son,
who back then must have been about two or three years old.
There were seven Angolan women and we were three Cape-Verdeans,
married to Angolan students.
So, we were ten in total.
We all went inside the jail.
Our boss, João Veira Lopes, or Bavil,
Iko Carreira, Boal, França Van Dunen,
started organizing to see what could be done,
and all of us waiting.
While we waited, we sang that song...
They sang it on the other side,
to cheer us and give us strength to show that they weren't afraid.
And we did the same thing, singing out very loud,
so they could Se and hear we also had our strength,
and could take the swing.
For about more than one hour, they sang Angolan freedom songs and others.
It was wonderful, it was an amazing spirit, given the circumstances,
because we didn't know what was going to happen.
- Is this the place? - I'm pretty sure it was,
although it was dark when they brought us here,
on that Friday night.
I was very upset, after we had our interrogation,
up in some place in Irún, to see them take the men out handcuffed.
I began to fear that they would be in one place
and we, the white Americans, would be somewhere else. I didn't want that.
Fortunately, after they had stripped and searched everybody,
we were all put in one big room.
We did spend that time together
and we tried to ease each other's anxieties,
because people fell they would be sent back to Portugal.
The French border, freedom right here, inches away,
and, suddenly, a whole dream becoming reality,
for this planned escape was the reality,
the dream to be free goes down the drain.
I'm at the frontier and I'm arrested.
Returning, being tortured, to die...
It must not have been nice the feeling back then.
We rushed to Madrid, 600 kilometers.
Jacques said we had to talk to the high official,
which is a protestant,
in the Foreign Ministry of the Government of Franco.
We got there, knocked on his door, one O'clock in the morning,
and Jacques spilled out, for 20 minutes everything that had happened,
they were still there and we were told they were in prison,
can you do something, and so on...
He was a very diplomatic, elegant man,
in his silk robe,
and after had heard all of that, we were still in panic, sweating, he said,
"By the way, there's a message for you here."
He had it all the time in his hand. "They are free..."
Here we are on the border.
- You crossed it some times. - Yes, 3 times I came here.
- This building was here. - That's the building.
We can tell from this. The two pillars and the arch, over there.
We came to the customs officers,
they said it was Saturday night, go back over to Spain
and come back tomorrow. I said, "Nothing doing it."
We're going to stay under the bridge all night if we have to,
but we're not going back to Spain! We're just getting out of prison.
I didn't want to take 41 people back to jail.
- Chuck, how are you? - Surprise!
- Nice to see you. - Welcome to France.
You are free!
When I look at this again, and look at that hotel today...
It's quite amazing that we found it!
- I can't believe it. - I know.
I never thought I'd get to see the Hotel Du Midi again.
I remember I walked in there and heard them making a phone call
I knew it was CIMADE.
I said, "Who is making that call?"
They said, "Shh, the lady at the end of the hall!"
- I went down, and there was Tânia Metzel. - Fantastic!
We had a picture taken right in front of the Midi.
I'm in the middle and Dick Wiborg is in it.
They're about 19 or 20, of the last 41.
We had a big celebration meal, on Sunday.
They were making speeches and singing patriotic songs,
when you and Jacques walked in and everybody cheered.
They hadn't seen you since Portugal, since the Minho River.
Look at these photos, gay, happy, in a good mood...
We got our freedom! Finally...
We are free, now we must free the country.
- Come in. - Thank you.
It's not Sèvres, but it's a place like this
where your parents and the other students were.
We stayed there in a dormitory
and then we earned the right to one bed.
Not a bed like ours,
but well, a bunk bed where we could sleep.
We had meals, and got a weekly allowance of 7,5 francs,
- it was real money, back then - for our extravagances.
CIMADE, before the whole thing started, made arrangements to take care of them,
to see that they had pocket money, to see that scholarships were being sought.
Eventually, that place was sold
and this has replaced it, so it is still doing the kind if thing Sèvres was doing.
You were in prison in San Sebastian
and suddenly, like a miracle, you were liberated.
How does that happen?
I believe Spain did not want to have an international incident,
that would infuriate all African countries, which were becoming newly liberated,
decolonized.
That would have been a terrible charge against Franco and his administration,
if he had sent these 41 people back to Portugal.
What we were allowed to know
was that this Franco decision, to free the group
was personally imposed by Charles de Gaulle, the French president,
and by John Kennedy. The embassies had pressured them.
We don't have documentary proof of this,
but we made an analysis afterward.
Seems that the French Government intervened with the Spanish authorities,
we don't know at which level.
I don't think it was Francisco Franco, but saying,
"We accepted those people as asylum seekers,
provisionally with a right to passage by France to wherever they want to go."
That intervention was facilitated, by the presence of Tânia Metzel,
who was head of the prison system in France.
She must have talked to the Ministry of Interior,
who then let the men know the Spanish authorities.
Ministry of Outremer, General Direction for Political and Civil Administration,
Political Business Bureau.
Sir PIDE Director, Secret.
For your high information,
I have the honor to inform that according to information received by this office,
of a conversation between the business agent for Portugal in Madrid
and the Director of Spanish Security, D. Carlos Arias Navarro,
about the clandestine passage to Spain
of 41 Portuguese students of black ethnicity,
he would declare that the students were nor captured
and returned to Portugal
for which the Spanish authorities feared to raise further complications,
not only because they could ask for political asylum,
but also because the American pastor who accompanied the fugitives
threatened to raise a scandal
and ask for the intervention of the diplomatic representatives in Spain,
if they were not allowed to proceed with their journey.
The Security director reinforced, in conclusion,
that, in the future, there would be taken any measures
to try to avoid similar incidents
and if any individual managed to delude the Portuguese authorities' surveillance
and clandestinely enter Spanish soil,
he would be immediately arrested.
Political Business Bureau, September 26th, 1961.
Several years later,
in 1966, I believe it was,
I was at that point in Antwerp, Belgium,
Melvin Blake stopped to spend an afternoon with me.
He said that, "When I went back to New York,
"I was called down to Washington, in late 1961,
"and there were people from the CIA and other secret service agencies
"who wanted to debrief me about this whole event."
He said , "We are very much aware of what you did,
"and we followed everything."
President Kennedy had been following the whole thing
and was very interested in what was happening.
He said that at this time, when we were in prison,
Salazar called Franco and said, "I demand you send me these 40 prisoners."
At which point Franco said, "No, I'm going to let them go."
There was no CIA involvement,
but I can't blame some of them for 50 years, thinking there must have been.
These secret organizations all have a tremendous reputation.
Just like the PIDE.
CIMADE got them a residential permit
and assured us we could go on with our studies in France with a scholarship,
with a scholarship.
We weren't interested to stay in Paris, so, we went off again.
We went straight into the struggle.
The seniors weren't continuing their studies in Europe,
they were to go on to Africa.
We felt we were being prevented to reach our goals.
Most probably - I'm not there in the set up neither -
our MPLA and PAI leaders would have packed their stuff
and we clandestinely left CIMADE.
One fine dawn, we grabbed our umbambas,
made a hole in CIMADE's fence and all went to the Trocadero.
We were led to the home of an Angolan gentleman, Mr. Câmara Pires,
where we had lunch - part of the group -
where we had lunch
and after lunch we got out to catch the buses out front.
At Trocadero, there was a bus waiting for us.
I think there were also two or three Algerians waiting on that bus.
We must have been supported by the Algerian clandestine escape network,
because they had some tremendous networks over there.
Our connecting element to escape from Paris was Jacques Vérgès,
the notorious lawyer Jacques Vérgès,
that then was the Algerian political prisoner's lawyer.
And so it was, we got on the bus,
with guitars on our hands, disguised as an African musical ensemble,
and so we went to the German border.
The Mozambicans and others stayed in Sèvres,
because their political leadership was coming, Eduardo Mondlane.
They waited, wanted to finish their studies.
When I heard this, I had two personal reactions.
I said, "Phenomenal!".
They wanted to leave to go to Africa to join the struggle.
But I have to admit I also found a little bit of sadness
because it was done secretly,
and there wasn't an opportunity to say, "Thank you CIMADE. Thank you, guys".
Not a a big ceremony, just, "We're leaving, thank you." That's all.
The beautiful Paris wasn't enough.
They needed to arm themselves, some did, fight with arms.
They needed to gather staff and fight with pens.
There was a need to keep the main objective,
total independence. We want our country.
We escaped by bus towards Germany,
crossed Luxemburg,
and arrived near Koln, Mettkitzberg.
We stayed about two days there,
and then went to Amsterdam,
where we took a KLM flight
freighted by the Ghana Government.
So we went to Ghana.
In Ghana, we were welcomed by Nkrumah, we were at his palace,
he threw us a party and it was nice,
it was interesting to get to know Nkrumah, to know the people at African Affairs,
who took care of the African fighters.
We were there several times,
Osvaldo and I insisting we contacted the PAIGC.
All doctors and senior medical students
were invited to Leopoldville.
Fortunately, all in the group went.
Then the others that were out were drafted and participated in the CVAAR:
the Angolan Refugee Assistance Volunteer Corps.
There were three doctors,
Boavida, Eduardo Santos and Mário Afonso Almeida,
and there were the seniors, Rui de Carvalho, Vieira Lopes,
Edmundo Rocha, Heinneken, Videira and I.
We were eight or ten doctors who would take turns
to work at the CVAAR and help the refugees in Leopoldville.
In Accra, we were visited by party leaders.
Amongst those leaders there were Amílcar Cabral and Aristides Pereira,
who talked with us for a while.
The group elements were distributed there
according to, I believe, the needs of the Party.
Pires and Osvaldo I think went to Algeria to get professional training
and I, because my concern was well known,
to get news of my daughter, who was sent to Cape Verde,
and I was sent to the PAIGC office in Dakar.
We got split up. We split up in Accra.
She went to Dakar, and I went to Leopoldville.
Each followed their party.
We accepted Lilica departure to Dakar because we wanted to get Sara back,
who was in Cape Verde. Dakar is closer, there are connections.
So, there's no allegiance war.
We felt the separation was very harsh.
In Ghana, we stayed about two months, waiting to be contacted,
Amílcar was there and talked to us,
Mário de Andrade also passed by,
and then I was already pregnant, my tummy could be spotted,
Amílcar's reasoning was the following,
"The liberation struggle regards us all.
"We Ar all in the same struggle.
"Lilica isn't pregnant, she comes with us.
"You are expecting.
"You go with your husband to Guinea or Angola,
your contribution is the same for the national liberation struggle."
But I was also pregnant.
Then I had a baby
who, in those circumstances, wouldn't resist, and died.
It was born in Dakar and died.
With my husband with the group in Leopoldville,
my only friend was that tummy
which, in the end, I eventually lost.
I was a mother and I assumed the role of a mother.
For four years I didn't do anything else.
Then we both were joined, my husband and I.
My husband was Cape Verdean,
we joined the PAIGC and I started working there.
Very short time at the pilot-school,
then at the party's secretary and at Rádio Libertação.
Amílcar Cabral. Uncle Amílcar.
In the year of 1973, I was coming back from school, we were in Germany,
we came in always the four of us,
and the bedroom was a complete mess.
On the floor, Ndira, my cousin Ndira Cabral.
Amílcar had been murdered.
There were Ndira, my grandmother, who also watched Cabral being murdered,
and I think since that day it became clear to me
that the Portuguese speaking African countries' great one was gone,
the great Amílcar.
That's when Guinea's independence struggle began,
the other's...
Finally Angola made it too
and we owe that to this generation,
my parents' generation, the escape generation.
They're guilty of our independence.
This experience was like forged, like those cattle ones in Texas.
This experience was etched in my brain,
affected all of us who participated.
We didn't know that all these people, like your parents and others,
would become presidents, diplomats, the future leaders of their countries.
We didn't know that. I wouldn't believe them.
What? Chissano, this little guy from Mozambique, 19 years old,
will be President of Mozambique?
Pedro Pires also.
I live in Angola which is, unmistakeably, growing.
Many of those who escaped never returned.
My parents never returned.
We were three years in Guinea and we also gave up staying there.
They often used an expression, "This wasn't what we agreed upon,"
but actually they also weren't prepared to take care of one country.
In my wanderings I met a German playwright who said,
"Revolutions take 50 years to produce positive results."
No, it wasn't what was agreed upon back then.
And maybe they didn't know quite well what they were agreeing upon.
We are independent,
we are celebrating our 40th anniversary in Angola this year.
The dream is still far away, out of reach,
a full functioning country for all.
We will get there.
In Memory of Julieta Gandra and Mário Pinto de Andrade.
To my comrades in Case #44/70 (4th Criminal Court of Lisbon)
and Case #21.419 (PIDE Angola)
with whom I shared the dream of an independent Angola
and a free, happy and progressive future for all of its children.
To the young people who, today, still fight for that dream to come true.
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