Emili Vivas Blanco

Catalan journalist, anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist. Prosecuted along with 5 collegues for their part in the La Candadenca strike in 1919, he emigrated to the U.S. in the mid '20s with his companion Aurora. During the campaign in defence of Sacco and Vanzetti they were both imprisoned. Returning to Spain, he became active in the trentistes section of the Confederació Nacional del Treball (CNT) in Catalonia, was appointed secretary of the Ateneu Sindicalista Llibertari in Barcelona in June 1932 and at the beginning of 1933 he became active in the Federació Sindicalista Llibertària (FSL), an organition created within the CNT in opposition to the Federació Anarquista Ibèrica (FAI). During this period he worked on the trentistes newspaper 'Cultura Llibertària' (1931-1933). In the War, he was secretary of the Sindicat de Periodistes in València and editorial secretary of the anarcho-syndicalist newspaper 'Fragua Social'. In August 1937 he was arrested on charges of having published an anonymous article in 'Fragua Social' critical of the Director General of Security. Afetr the war, he crossed into France and was one of the first to join the Résistance in the Roussillon area in the Languedoc. Arrested by the Vichy authorities, he was jailed for a few months in Toulouse. In the summer of 1943, he was arrested by the Gestapo in Perpignan and in 1944 ended up in the Fresnes prison in Paris (Ile de France).