 Good afternoon. I've wanted to start saying that I'm really honoured being invited here and I have the possibility to speak to you. Comparing with all most of you, or historians, actually most of my career I spent looking at the future at the university. I studied four sides and the first PhD was in law, in journalism and the second PhD after 10 years in law and I worked for universities that tried to see how the future is going to be. So you probably may ask yourself, so what I'm doing here coming from the city probably is difficult to pronounce, talking about past, about history. So I just would like to explain. I've spent more than five years doing research on the voluntariuses, on the volunteers from Poland and these volunteers from Poland you may see in your booklet Polish volunteers, but the volunteers from Poland were not only Polish. Maybe today when we are the homogeneous country you may say, yes, the volunteers from Poland would be Polish, but most of the history Poland actually was a mixture of different cultures, a hard part of different cultures. So these volunteers from Poland were Ukrainians, were Polish of course, were Jewish, were Germans and they were from all over, I mean all over the part of Poland. And the situation when they came here was very difficult because they already, most of them knew what was going on in Soviet Union. Just to give you an example, one of these cameradas, when he was politely invited to join a committee in Soviet Union, he went to the Polish police and said, please arrest me. So I don't have to go to Soviet Union because they already knew what was going on. The Ukrainians knew very well what was going on with the big hunger. Stalin decided, didn't like the Ukrainians too much, decided to send them all to Siberia or try to take away all the food. The situation was so bad that people were eating even children. Some children, the parents were saying to their children, don't leave home because you risk to be eaten. More than a million people died. So these people were conscious about what was going on in Soviet Union and still they knew as well that the belief as well in the left wing or socialist or communist idea, most of them spent years and years in prison to fight for these left wing ideas. At the same time, 1937, 1938, the processes started against the communists. Another story I can tell you was actually interesting for me as well. I heard it in Sweden from those communists and socialists that were in prison in Poland. It's when the Soviets came to Poland, they were advised knowing the experience not to tell that they spent their life, they spent so many years in prison and one of them told this story that when he was asked to go to the police and talk about his past, it's because a colleague said that he was a communist. So they showed him pictures of Marx and Engels and other important philosophers and they asked him what he thinks about and he knows what he knows about them and he said, imagine, a person who spent eight years in prison for communist idea. He looked at these pictures and said, I don't know, I think the one looks like Matt's teacher. I think yes. So they let him away. So I think when we talk about looking at the archives in Russia as well, not because they're Russian polisher from wherever country, but because they are made as well by people who had to justify their income, let's say, by say that producing information. So I would not look at these sources as very, very reliable and for this reason and the other reason that they lied, they lied to save their life. As a journalist, we always say that one source is no source. But going back to the main point of my presentation, I would like to explain you three main aspects of my talk. So the first point is about the research itself. The second is about the motives that I already mentioned and the third one is about the participation and then about the participation in the war of those volunteers and the way as well it was presented in the propaganda, in the Soviet propaganda and nowadays as well. Probably you know that I come from a country where we have a very different politics of history. Actually, we don't have the democracy. It's not the main point. The main point is the national aspect. So dividing the motives, yes, for this research, I started more than 10 years ago. It was a scientific. My first speech there was about freedom of expression and I was thinking how come I can hear only one side of the story and not the other side. Why only people who fought for Franco could say, yes, my grandparents came to fight for Franco and the other part is better to say anything. There was as well, of course, a personal reason. The personal reason is that my grandparents came to Paris and then went to Paris and then from Paris wanted to go to Spain. Talking about women, my grandmother unfortunately, she could not go because she was pregnant but my grandfather came to Spain in 1938. He was waiting more than a year to come here. Probably from what we know, from what I could find, the documents, he came probably even earlier but it's honest to say 1938. So the reason was as well personal because my father was born after my grandfather died or disappeared. So the idea was just to know where he died, why he came here, what was his motives, where is his grave, his very basic questions and as well, of course, why today the other part of the story, the other perspective of this war in my country, it's not only neglected but it's just cancelled. In the last year, almost all the cities in Poland had to change the name of the brigadiers from Poland, which was called Dąbrów Szczace and now it has been changed to a new name because this name is forbidden. It's just another perspective. So what kind of sources I found? This is actually interesting that the research was interesting because some of the sources I found, not in Moscow, I've never been in Moscow with all respect, beautiful city, I've never been there, I just found them in the Pyrenees and I think maybe this is just a conclusion from this point that you still have many places where these sources are nascondidos, where people keep in their private houses these documents and my approach was not as a historian in this moment, it was more as an investigative journalist and I had to pay as well for these documents. So that's actually another topic but just to invite you to reflect because maybe apart from the Moscow archives there are still interesting documents here around. Okay, so I was like as well to say something about those who came here and about my grandfather. He was a very tall person, almost 2 meters high. I know you're all intellectuals here and don't like stereotypes but I just feel free to close your eyes and imagine this classical Russian big guy from the American movies. It was him. If we would enter he probably would see him. At this time when everybody was 162 he was this big guy with blue, blue eyes and that probably was his problem as well because when he came to Spain with all this mess you had here he was sent to the German division where he studied Spanish, he studied French but his German was not probably very good. I don't know a lot about my grandfather for obvious reasons but I know just two stories that I would like to tell you before the war. I mean the one he has a very big and very happy person as well. He was very positive, even the prison guards as far as I heard liked him. But one story was this in prison they kept this big Alsatian dog who was trained to jump on the intimate part of the body and the story was that he knew about this and he strangled this dog and that's why he became very liked by other prisoners. The other story is he used to escape more than once from the prison and once he escaped and ended up in a escape room escaped to my grandmother's house and after spending I don't know, night or day she jumped off the window just into the arms of a Polish policeman and spent another four years in prison. If you have this situation some others have bigger trouble than four years in prison for this beautiful night but they both after leaving the prison they went from Prague to my grandmother she had family in Italy and in Switzerland so she could go to Paris before and she waited for him and he arrived to Paris and from Paris to Barcelona. I have these letters the letters are written by Zygmunt Rumcik a famous Polish volunteer and other volunteers who try to help him help my grandmother to find my father because as I said before he ended up which is actually interesting from this letter Zygmunt Rumcik is saying I met Michał and I wanted him to join our division but he said he has to go through many formalities and I think you come to this world and actually I studied this word very carefully the more I studied the less I understand how it really went to I can imagine that maybe this was one of the reasons unfortunately you lost so you arrived here and you spent two months or three months to do all the formalities and at the end of the day you finish up in a division because you are tall and have blue eyes in a German division and not in your division but once I wanted to say from this letter sometimes I found myself I find myself difficult to read such a personal letter but these people were like brothers and sisters they were really very sincere and very helpful when my father disappeared in this war from what I learned he was injured he was injured in his eyes and nevertheless he went to fight being injured probably he had this feeling that there is no alternative really to go back but from these letters I can see how they are open and sincere and helpful one of them is writing for example I am sitting here maybe that's why the women were not allowed I am sitting here under the tree dressed in an Adam dress which means naked exchanging cigarettes for wine but please send me more cigarettes also they disappear for example they are in the post but the Republican post has to smoke as well so don't worry but send them these letters that are so open and sincere for sure were not written for the future to build to create the myth of Brigade if you read them it seems like a real enthusiasm and great friendship even when they had to leave just one of these letters when Tarunczyk one of these Polish volunteers and another Jewish are saying to my grandmother try to believe that he is still alive but he is saying as well I have to leave Spain the dream of my life has finished and dream of my life has finished and I am just of course I would like to say many other aspects of this but I would like just to finish with a letter I received from talking about knowledge and about the conscious about our past so I received a letter at the end the letters the Ministry of Justice I really love this letter from three reasons I mean apart from maybe my third PhD of course this is my personal success but I like it much more for other reasons so it's written here that I have given to you an Ukrainian citizen and I think I don't know it's a common knowledge that Hamlet was the Prince of Dutch that in China it's Vietnam and in 1939 if you look at the map 38 there is Soviet Union there not Ukraine and it's I don't know Minasunt of Yaza but it's signed by the Minister of the Minister of Hustitsia as well I have to add that I was probably one of the last because you had the deadline and I submit the documents three days before the deadline and you have anticipated election so the person who signed this reconocimiento was from the Rahoy government probably it was very trembling his hand but I just think how you know the Ukraine and Lithuania all these countries got the citizenship and it's independence in the 90s so I really love these documents because he recognized your your your government recognized basically my grandfather as probably the only citizen in Europe not only citizen of Ukraine there's no more citizens at the time and I think it's actually very important as well to introduce these classes these lectures because what we me is actually and we let grow the next generation with this idea of seeing one part only of the story and so I would like to very thank you to have the possibility to speak here and I hope this possibility as well to promote as the volunteers and work that would as well influence the youth in Poland not only here in Spain. Thank you very much.