A republican infiltrated within the Francoist repressive apparatus

BarcelonaJaume Font Marí-Martí (Terrassa, 1918-2010) was so discreet that he practically never spoke about his clandestine struggle or how he infiltrated the Francoist military judicial machinery to alter records and save lives. "I had to pull many strings. He only spoke to me about it once. We were walking through Cerdanya with some friends, we were teenagers. Without looking directly at anyone, almost contemplating the landscape, my father explained that after the Civil War he had worked at the War Auditor's Office and that he had risked a lot by altering documents to reduce sentences or avoid death penalties. It was an unexpected and brief revelation. No one asked any questions. The conversation stopped there and he never spoke of it again," says his daughter, Núria Font.

If she has been able to reconstruct her father's story, it is because he sent letters to people he considered should know what had happened. He also left some letters for his children in the home mailbox. And he made it explicit in the obituary he wanted to write many years before he died. "There he mentioned that he had worked as an infiltrator in the War Auditor's Office. A reference to the Germanor de les Creus de Sang, a name adopted in clandestinity by the Unió Democràtica de Catalunya, also appeared there," details Núria Font.

Jaume Font Marí-Martí studied at the Mútua Escolar Blanquerna – the institution founded by Alexandre Galí i Coll, a key figure in Catalan educational modernization – which was closed down with the Francoist victory. When he was 18 years old, he enlisted as a volunteer in the Republican army, but for health reasons, he performed administrative duties until shortly before the defeat. In January 1939, he was declared fit and mobilized. He reached the border on February 5th with Raimon Galí, who had been his schoolmate. Three days later, he was interned at the Sant Cebrià camp. "Galí, in his book, Recalada (1984) speaks of my father," explains Núria Font. Galí wrote that Jaume Font "saved countless lives at the risk of his own. All without noise and without making himself visible". "At the camp, they didn't give them water or food for four days," explains Núria Font. He escaped by taking advantage of a visit from a family who had begun a series of procedures to get him out of there.

Making reports disappear

After a period in hiding in Béziers, Font decided to return to Barcelona. He never spoke about who his parents were. "After he died, we learned that he was the son of a single woman, Assumpció Martí de Moxó, and a married industrialist, Jaume Prunés. At home we always knew them as grandparents," says Núria Font. One of the reasons he returned to Francoist Spain was precisely because he had received news that Assumpció was ill. He presented himself at the Spanish consulate in Perpignan and announced that he wanted to return. He was sent to the concentration camp at the convent of Sant Domènec in Girona, from which he was released a few days later. "When he arrived in Barcelona, he went to the Classification Board for Prisoners and Presentees. He was lucky that the soldier behind the counter was a former colleague from the Mútua Escolar Blanquerna, Lluís de March," states Núria Font. March offered him a job working with other former Blanquerna students. He enlisted in the Spanish army and obtained a certificate declaring him "loyal" to the regime.

He became a judicial secretary for the War Audit and shortly after, secretary of military court number 4. He had access to many open general causes and, as he was alone in the office, he made changes to the files. "If the reports were very unfavorable, he would alter them or even make them disappear. Other times he would alter surnames, change letters," explains Núria Font. This was not the only clandestine struggle he waged. "My father, who had participated in the scout movement, helped people cross the border and, once in Barcelona, helped them obtain documents," she assures. Among those who received help was Alexandre Galí i Coll himself, who in 1942 decided to return from his French exile.

Over the years, Jaume Font remained involved in cultural and political resistance initiatives. He collaborated with the Front Nacional de Catalunya and, according to his daughter, participated in symbolic actions such as the kidnapping of the Virgin of Núria on the night of July 8-9, 1967. He left behind an extremely important archival legacy. In the sixties, he began recording prominent voices from Catalan culture and society. What had started as a hobby evolved into a sound archive with over twelve thousand recordings, which is preserved at the National Archive of Catalonia. "My father was a very discreet person, very shy, he didn't talk much and worked a lot, he was not fond of revelry and merrymaking," explains Núria Font. The stress and anxiety he experienced while retouching files left him with after-effects: "He had a lot of trouble sleeping, he took sleeping pills his whole life," recalls his daughter.