Enriqueta Otero Blanco, “Maria das Dores” (1910-1988)

Enriqueta Otero Blanco was born on 26 February 1910 in Castroverde (Lugo). She came from a wealthy rural family. Her father was of hidalgo origin (nobleman) and had a reputation of being a tyrant, whereas her mother, good-natured, died shortly after giving birth to nine children. Thanks to her uncle, who was a priest, she started her education quite early. She completed her high school studies at La Milagrosa secondary school and then graduated in Primary Education. The first time she worked as a teacher was in San Cosme de Barreiros (Lugo).

She showed a special vocation for culture and knowledge and she founded a theatre company (O Punteiro do Carriño) with the aim of bringing culture to villages and rural areas, and did so by touring Fonsagrada, Corcoesto, Vilagarcia and Pontevedra. During this first stage, she became deeply involved in and committed to a variety of cultural activities in which she acted as a teacher, actress and theatre director. Once she passed the government teaching exams, she moved to Madrid to continue her training in Education, particularly as a specialist in the deaf-mutes. She later married in Madrid.

The atmosphere of the capital city, and Madrid culture in general, so different from the small rural areas of Galicia, shook her intellectually. She got involved in the cultural atmosphere of the Republic and, strongly influenced by the political debate and the different forums for the exchange of ideas, she ended up joining the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) in 1936, in pre-war times.

After being a direct witness of the coup d’état in Madrid, she did not hesitate to join the popular militia in the column led by Valentín González González “El Campesino” (“The Peasant”) in the 5th Regiment. From December 21, 1936, this column, whose members were mainly communist militants, was integrated in the popular army known as the 1st Shock Mobile Brigade and, later, as the 10^th Mixed Brigade. Once in the army, she eventually attained the rank of Major and was later to be known as the militiawoman of culture. “Culture is not about knowing how to read and write. Culture is something broader, it is knowing how to govern oneself according to the laws of morality and ethics, to be able to conduct oneself in all the events of one’s life, without wandering around, without needing others to guide us on our way. Some people –the fascists– are interested in not letting the immense majority think for themselves so they will go wherever they want them to. This is always their inference: leading for the good of the few and the unrest of the many. But when a people know their rights and duties, when they know how to discern the just from the unjust, when it is well educated, then criminal exploitation is not possible. This is our ideal, and that’s why we make a call to all anti-fascists to go to school. Let’s all educate ourselves, comrades. Let’s be humble, which means being great”.

Parallel to that she worked as a coordinator with Doctor Mariano Gómez at the Carabanchel hospital, where the injured militias were sent. In Alicante, she took part in the creation of school-hospitals, and she also organised nurseries for the children of soldiers as well as arranging the accommodation for the widows and companions of the fallen soldiers. She even came to work as the secretary of La Pasionaria, Dolores Ibárruri.

After Casado’s coup, she was arrested and imprisoned in Las Ventas. There, she organised a riot and a prison break demanding to be allowed to continue the fight. Once the war was over, she was arrested again, first in Las Salesas with 2,600 other women and later in Las Ventas. Again, she organised a riot, this time with hostages, and managed to escape again from prison. After wandering in Madrid on the run, she decided to return to Galicia posing as a Francoist.

In Galicia, a priest who was a friend of the family (Manuel Gómez Díaz) kept her hidden. But Enriqueta did not want to live as a defeated and decided to join the Maquis. Once there, she articulated and structured “La terra dos fuxidos galegos” (“The land of Galician fugitives”) as part of the Resistance, together with Benigno Andrade “Foucelhas”, José Castro Veiga “the Pilot”, Ramón Vivero, Julio Neto or Marcelino Rodríguez “Marrofer”. She then adopted and used the war name Maria das Dores. They continued the fight against the Guardia Civil, constantly moving for seven years, although once the Second World War ended, the possibility of an international intervention in Spain began to fade away.

In 1942, the police made a new attempt to arrest her. She had begun to establish links with the fugitives and with the anti-fascists of Becerreá, where she helped to put in place a primitive guerrilla structure. Without contact with the PCE until 1944, her political and organizational work in an important part of the province of Lugo had a strong influence in the subsequent political and guerrilla growth of the province.

In 1944 she joined the Provincial Committee of Lugo, and the following year she established direct relations with the PCE. In February of that year, she was appointed at the head of finances and organisation. Despite the fall of some cadres, the party came to count throughout the province with a hundred militants and a dozen and a half guerrillas.

From the end of 1945 to the beginning of 1946, the surveillance on the Communist Party of Lugo and on Enriqueta Otero intensified. In January of this year the fall of several people jeopardized the entire provincial structure; in February, up to fifty people linked to the resistance fell.

On February 14, 1946, a leak to the police about her location led to an ambush and to her arrest. She was injured and taken to the hospital, where she had to receive emergency surgery. But this did not prevent her from being brutally tortured until her trial, which she had to attend on crutches. She was sentenced to death by the Military Court of the 8th Military Region. Due to international pressure and to the attempt by the regime to adapt to an increasingly changing world context, her sentence was commuted to 30 years in prison.

For 19 years she went through different state prisons such as Amorebieta, Segovia, and Guadalajara -in 1951. Some months after being sentenced she was sent to Alcalá de Henares. In October 1946 she was transferred to the prison of Amorebieta, and at the end of November to that of Segovia, where she spent five years in dreadful hygienic, medical, sanitary and food conditions which led her to participate in the 1949 strikes demanding improvements to the prison. In October 1951 she was admitted to the Guadalajara prison and months later she was locked up in Alcalá de Henares, where she was released on parole in 1960. The final sentence still had to wait until 1965.

She was finally released in 1966 and returned to her village. When she got out of prison, she recovered some of the seized family property, although she lost part of it and had to survive without being authorized to work as a teacher. The Francoist authorities had revoked her teaching certificate and was not allowed to work in education. She then lodged a long administrative complaint for her restitution as a national teacher, which she finally won in October 1974.

In 1975, a year before retiring, she was appointed to a school in Fontarón. During her brief reinstatement in the education system, she launched an educational project called O Carriño, which consisted of transferring university degree knowledge to all those who, due to lack of means, could not access university education. The headquarters of this travelling initiative was in a palloza in the park Rosalía de Castro in Lugo.

In the constituent elections of 1977, she decided to run in the elections to the Congress for the Communist Party of Spain (PCE), although she was not elected as a deputy. Over time, she would end up distancing herself from the party.

Enriqueta died at the age of 79 on 31 October 31 1988 in Lugo. She was buried in a Republican flag and has since been recognised as “the last Galician guerrilla, a Pasionaria do pobo galego”.