by VICTOR PARDO LANCINA
ON 23 JUNE 1937, George Orwell and his wife Eileen boarded a train in the Barcelona station, destination Portbou.
They were leaving Spain for good, clandestinely, despite their passports being in order, since the POUM (Party of Marxist Unity) had been declared illegal after the May events, which pitted the anarchists and POUMistas against the government. The police, implacable, were tracking down and imprisoning militants and sympathizers of the party of Andres Nin.
Orwell and Eileen were not alone: They were traveling with John McNair, the Catalonian representative of the ILP (Independent Labor Party), and with Stafford Cottman, a young militant of this British organization, allied politically with the POUM. After crossing the border, McNair and Cottman continued to Paris, and Orwell and Eileen stayed on to rest at Banyuls.
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