Maria Teresa Pi-Sunyer: "By recovering my grandfather's archive, who died in exile, I have brought him back home."

BarcelonaAfter the Civil War was lost, Catalonia saw one of its greatest writers and intellectuals go into exile. Xavier Benguerel wrote that exile has no end and that the exile is forever. It is not easy to explain the exodus and the longing of thousands of Catalans who had to leave. Teresa Pi-Sunyer experienced it firsthand. She is the cleansing ofAugust Pi-Sunyer, who had to go into exile with his brothers, Carlos and Santiago. August Pi i Sunyer (1879-1965), a renowned physiologist and professor at the University of Barcelona; Santiago Pi i Sunyer (1893-1981), also a prestigious physiologist and professor at the University of Zaragoza; and Carles Pi i Sunyer (1888-1971), a trained engineer and politician, always hoped to return to Catalonia and live in their beloved Roses. Only Santiago returned to Catalonia (he was the youngest of the brothers and the least politicized) in the early 1960s.

Teresa, who recently moved to Roses, wanted to gather her grandfather's papers, which were scattered between the United States and Catalonia. All these documents are in addition to those that César, an uncle of Teresa, had already sent from Mexico to the archives of the Royal Academy of Medicine in 1965. "One of the things that was most distressing to me was that, if you searched online, you found practically nothing about my grandfather, or it hadn't been updated for many years. Now we've been able to digitize his archive, and there's much more information," says Teresa Pi-Sunyer, who is grateful for the work of doctors Bombí and Grande in putting together the Fund. The physical archive has been stored in an office at the Royal Academy of Medicine that was previously used as a reading room. "By recovering my grandfather's archive, who died in exile, I've brought him back home," she says.

Starting Over at 60

Augusto and Carlos Pi y Sunyer died in Caracas. Teresa lived with them and their parents. "Franco has done so much harm to so many. But as far as our family is concerned, the greatest evil is the dispersion he has forced upon us, and which has no remedy," wrote Augusto in 1947. "At home, many conversations revolved around longing and nostalgia, but Grandpa was a very affable person." There was no bitterness: "What I admire most about Grandpa is that at 60, which is the age he was when he arrived in Caracas, he was able to start over; to resume all his research and teaching activities at the University of Caracas," he explains. The Royal Academy of Medicine houses, above all, Augusto's books, articles, and professional and scientific correspondence.

The three brothers, Pi and Sunyer, had a very close relationship. In Roses, they even owned a small boat that they named Tres Hermanos. Once they went into exile, the three were only able to meet again once, in Caracas in 1960. They never stopped writing to each other.