Juan Ruiz Martín

Andalusian labourer, anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist, dies in exile in London. Affiliated to the Joventuts Llibertàries, in March 1932 he was elected second secretary of the Sindicat d'Oficis Diversos of the CNT in Marbella, a postion he held when the war broke out in 1936. Member of the Comités Antifascistas, from Septermber 1936 he was part of the Comitè d'Enllaç (Liaison Committee), the Comitè del Front Popular and the Comitè d'Abastiments (Committee of Supplies) until the fall of Malaga in Jamuary 1937. He was then an artillery officer in the Army of the Second Republic on the Ebro front, where he was wounded. In 1939, following Franco's victory, he crossed the Pyrenees and was interned in the Vernet concentration camp. Then he was sent to a Compagnies de Travailleurs Étrangers (CTE), which was able to escape, but was stopped by the police and deported to a concentration camp in the Maghreb. In 1941, in the Djelfa camp in Algeria he was a nurse and eventually enlisted in the British army, staying in England when the was ended (as did Agustín Roa Ventura, Antonio Vargas Rivas and others). Earning his libving as a kitchen worker in a hotel, he remained active organising aid for Spanish activists and wrote for 'Cenit' (Zenith), 'España fuera de España' (Spain outside Spain), 'Faro' (Beacon) and 'Nervio' (Nerve).