Maria Castelló Ibarz, "Maria Ferrer" (1914-1945)

María Castelló Ibarz was born on 6 January 1914 in Mequinenza (Saragossa). She was the daughter of Elvira Ibarz and Antoni Castelló, who died shortly after her birth. Her mother later remarried Jaume Beleta, whom she had met while working in a hotel in Pobla de Segur (Lleida) and with whom she had returned to Mequinenza after he  finished his military service. In 1925, due to the mining crisis in the area, the family had to emigrate to Haute-Garonne (France).

Upon the outbreak of the civil, her parents, who were both politically committed, returned to Catalonia together with their niece, Conxita Grangé [1]. Maria stayed with them for a whole year, but ended up returning to France. In Catalonia, her stepfather, who had experience as a builder, started working mainly in maintenance tasks in the military airfields of the Republic, particularly fortifying the airfields of Tortellà and Balaguer. After the defeat, her family set out on the road to exile and returned to France to reunite with her. Her mother and her cousin were sent to the Pas-de-Calais refugee camp until they were allowed to go south to Gudàs and finally to Varilhes, where Maria lived with her husband Joseph Ferrer and their three children: René, Iolande and Serge.

Once they were in France, and as the Nazi invasion advanced steadily during the Second World War, her stepfather –Jaume Beleta– decided to put himself at the service of the French resistance. At that time the resistance was getting organised in the south of France in guerrilla groups with a military structure. Although all political tendencies were represented, the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) was the one in charge of organising secret guerrilla groups under the name of the 14th Spanish Guerrilla Brigade (the name of the brigade that had participated in guerrilla warfare during the Spanish civil war). The brigade was first led by Jesús Ríos, the first national leader of the Spanish guerrillas. The different brigades and sections were placed under the Higher Command. The 3rd Brigade was the one operating in the Ariège region.

Maria’s stepfather, who had then joined the resistance, managed to open a logging business in Col du Py. From 1941 on, this business was the ingenious solution the PCE came with to camouflage its members and prepare them for military operations. In these “logging companies”, the party’s members would live along with their families while they worked as loggers or charcoal burners, thus concealing their real political activity. All these places ended up becoming the main logistical support centres of the guerrillas, and those who engaged in this trade were called chantiers [2].

Another example were the British and North American airmen, who were transferred down to Gibraltar itself. These networks were organised and subsidised by the allied secret services, who also provided weapons, forged papers and even radio transmitters to the evasion channels. Among these networks there was the Ponzán network, organised by the anarchist Francisco Ponzán (Vidal) [3]  in which Maria came to participate.

The Ponzán network was one of the most important networks operating in France and it helped to evacuate between 2000 and 3000 people, mostly through the Pyrenees, but also by sea. Ponzán was in charge of the area from Toulouse to the Spanish territory. The anarchists of the Ponzán Group wanted to spread and strengthen the fight against Franco on all possible fronts, and their collaboration with the allied secret services provided them with funding, weapons and contacts. The Ponzán network of passeurs and guides, which helped fugitives cross the border, never depended on any  organisation, but collaborated intensely with other French and English networks such as the Pat O’Leary network, one of the most important in terms of evasion, information and mail at the service of the Resistance and the Allies between 1940 and 1944. It was organised by the secret services of the United Kingdom and specialised in the evasion of Allied airmen who had accidentally crashed or landed on occupied French territory.