Generosa Cortina Roig (1910-1987)

Generosa Cortina Roig was born on 19 April 1910 in Son (Lleida). She was the daughter of Bàrbara Roig and Jaume Cortina. In 1925, at the age of fifteen, due to her family situation, she had to emigrate to Granges-sur-Lot (France) where her sister Antònia was already living. There she met Jaume Soldevila Pich, also from Escart (Lleida) whom she married in 1931. After their marriage, the couple settled in Toulouse, where he worked as a mechanic.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the border and in order to cope with the economic hardships of the post-war period in Spain, her husband’s brothers went to Andorra to work as smugglers. Ricardo and Joan Soldevila had taken part in the war. Joan had enlisted as a volunteer in the Carabiner Corps and Ricardo in the air force. But on one of their journeys they were caught smuggling by the Guardia Civil and were imprisoned in Lleida. While in prison they met a man from Saint-Girons (Ariège, France), whose activities and skills with the smuggling networks helped them enter a network of couriers. Months later, as the Second World War unfolded, they joined the Belgian De Jean network that passed data and information on behalf of the Allies across the French border (Toulouse-Barcelona). Generosa and her husband became agents of both networks: the Françoise evasion network and the Belgian De Jean information network.

In 1943 they organised what was to be known as the SOL line. The network connected the cities of Barcelona and Paris passing through Toulouse with the help of Generosa and Jaume. The SOL line name referred to the first three letters of the courier’s name (Soldevila), who was at the end of the line and was the person in charge of collecting and delivering the parcels to Barcelona. This line operated as an allied information and evasion network which, during the Second World War, linked Toulouse with Barcelona, and was managed by four members of the same family.

These networks were responsible for the escape of thousands of people who were persecuted by the Nazis from different European countries occupied by the Germans. Fugitives took a great risk trying to sneak across the Pyrenees border: an arrest could lead to deportation or expulsion. The destination varied depending on the person who escaped: on the one hand, there were the Consulates of the Allies in Spain and Portugal, while others, such as the Jews or young French fugitives, had a much harder time. Another example were the British and North American airmen, who were transferred down to Gibraltar itself. These networks were organised and subsidized by the allied secret services, which also provided weapons, forged papers and even radio transmitters to the evasion channels. In the summer of 1943, the network was fully operational.

It is easy to deduce from the description that the SOL Line was part of the Pat O’Leary Line, one of the most important organisations in terms of evasion, information and mail in the service of the Resistance and the Allies between 1940 and 1944. The Pat O’Leary network was organised by the secret services of the United Kingdom and specialized in the evasion of Allied airmen who crash-landed in occupied France.

The SOL line operated on different routes. First, Ricardo “José” travelled to Barcelona to pick up the parcels at the Belgian consulate. Then, he took the parcels from Barcelona to Cerdanya and left them in a house that was used like a mailbox. There, Jaume “Pablo” would pick them up and take them to Toulouse, where Generosa delivered them to another member of the network, a woman whose identity was unknown.

Once the route in Cerdanya became too dangerous, they moved it to the Pallars Sobirà. Again, Ricardo would smuggle the parcels to Escart while Joan “Rodrigo” covered the route from Escart to Couflens. In Couflens, Joan would leave the parcels in a trusted house where they were collected to take them to Saint Girons. Once there, Jaume took them to Toulouse where Generosa would deliver them.

In April 1944, the Belgian government, in exile in London, launched the Roch mission, the aim of which was to evacuate secret agents and particularly important people. The person in charge of the mission, the Belgian air captain Charles de Hepcée, was supposed to enter France with the help of the Soldevila brothers.

Ricardo was in charge of taking him from Barcelona to Pallars Sobirà. There, the brothers had planned to hide him in a house in Son (Lleida) until Jaume arrived to take him to Toulouse. But for fear of being exposed and denounced by a local man they had the misfortune of running into, they decided to continue the journey straight away.

Upon Hepcée’s arrival in France, a contact was supposed to guide him on French territory, but he abandoned him as soon as he crossed the border. Hepcée was intercepted in Ariège by a German patrol. On 22 April 1944 he was brutally interrogated, and subsequently imprisoned and executed.

This led the authorities to dismantle the SOL line. A month after Hepcée’s arrest, on 15 April, the Gestapo broke into Generosa and Jaume’s home. On 3 July she was deported on board the so-called “ghost train”.

The so-called “ghost train” was one of the last transports to take its occupants to the Nazi concentration camps. And there began a journey that, according to Nazi plans, was intended to reach the Dachau concentration camp in three days. The train began its journey by transporting the prisoners in trucks from the Vernet d’Ariège camp to Toulouse. Once there, they were joined by prisoners from the Saint Michel prison and by approximately twenty women from nearby camps, among whom there were also other Spanish women. The train left Toulouse on 3 July 1944 with 750 deportees, 221 of whom were Spanish, and finally reached Dachau on 28 August 1944, 54 days after its departure. The relentless bombardments by the Allies, combined with the attempts of sabotage by the Maquis to free the prisoners, slowed down the journey, hindered by a constant back and forth in deplorable conditions. The prisoners were besieged by hunger and thirst, the conditions in the train were inhuman and got even worse when the train stopped for days as the summer heat hit hard. The wagons had no air vents and were overcrowded with people who had no place to relieve themselves or to sit, and had almost nothing to eat or drink. In addition to that, due to constant attacks which managed to block the train in some sections, the prisoners had to endure long walks and continuous train changes under the harsh repressive conditions already imposed on them.

Transcript

Generosa Cortina Roig was an important figure of courage and solidarity in the anti-fascist struggle. Born in 1910 in Son, a village in Pallars Sobirà, Catalonia, she experienced firsthand the socio-political upheavals of the early 20th century. Economic hardships forced her to migrate to France at the age of fifteen, where she eventually married Jaume Soldevila Pich and settled in Toulouse. She found herself thrust into clandestine operations against fascism during World War II. Her involvement in the de Jean’s network, smuggling aviators and vital information across borders, underscored her pivotal role in the resistance. However, the Gestapo’s relentless pursuit led to her arrest and imprisonment in concentration camps. Enduring unimaginable horrors, Generosa’s spirit remained unbroken as she resisted Nazi oppression alongside fellow prisoners. After the war, Generosa’s bravery and resilience were recognized with awards such as the Medal of Freedom. Despite the trauma she endured, she found peace in her later years. Generosa’s story serves as a powerful reminder of the often-overlooked contributions of women in resistance movements and the enduring legacy of courage.

Script-Narration: Mariona Ripoll Ocaña, Laia Segura Mardonado, Martí Grau Alemany

Coordination: Manos Avgeridis, Ioanna Vogli
Audio editing – Mastering: Alexey Arseny Fokurov
Recorded at Antart Studios, Athens