07/27/2019
About the family who bought Morning Star, Miguel A. Torres. Big relief to know they were not Franco-lovers.
Torres was a gentle man with an overall graceful quality that seemed to elevate our conversation by his mere presence. He shared his story with us, which started before he was born… when his father was a young man, basically running for his life during the time that Franco ruled Spain, starting in 1936. His father, Miguel Torres senior, was an educated man and was considered a threat to the fascist dictator, so he was eventually captured and sent to one of Franco’s concentration camps. I have to admit that unitl I heard this story, I had no idea that Spain had concentration camps. Later, I looked up reports talking about the crimes against humanity that were committed by Franco against his own people – it is estimated that anywhere between 200,000 to 400,000 were killed, but the number of those who survived their torture while imprisoned cannot even be estimated. The Catalonia region was especially targeted by the Franco regime and was repressed until his rule ended when he died in 1975.
Miguel Torres senior was fortunate to have a friend help get him out of the concentration camp. He returned to Catalonia where his family had a winery in Vilafranca del Penedès – it had to be rebuilt after it was destroyed during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).
