Geraldton reporter’s grandma remembers being led through the mountains by gypsies as political refugee

When I tell people about my European heritage, I think sometimes they have a romantic picture in their head of my grandparents riding bikes down the cobblestoned roads in the south of France or enjoying hearty meals always accompanied by a drop of red wine. But this is far from the truth, something my nonna has been reminded of during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. She was born in Barcelona in 1939, when the Spanish Civil War — which some estimate claimed up to one million lives — was coming to an end. When Barcelona finally fell to General Francisco Franco, upwards of 475,000 residents fled to France out of fear for the repression they would face if they stayed under Franco’s rule. Nonna’s father was one of the men who joined this initial exodus, leaving her mother to care for three children with only the help of nonna’s grandmother. It was an impossible task, and my great-grandmother decided to enlist the help of gypsies to take them across the border to reunite with her husband in France. Some of my nonna’s earliest memories are of the treacherous journey the convey took through the mountains to avoid being apprehended by the Spanish police. All was going according to plan until they arrived in France to discover the successful shoe business nonna’s father had boasted about was all a sham. The man was living in poverty and had no intention of paying the gypsies for their services. They quickly persuaded him to change his mind. “You don’t mess with the gypsies,” says nonna. The family were generally well-accepted as political refugees in France, on the condition they live and work on a farm. Which actually worked out pretty well for them because there was plenty of fresh produce available, unlike in the cities. Nonna remembers collecting warm milk straight from the cow, filling buckets of the sweetest honey from an old tree trunk, and roasting fresh chestnuts in an open fire. Later they moved to a nearby town where they lived in an old apartment building with other refugee families. Nonna went to school and later married my nonno in a church I was lucky enough to visit before the pandemic. Hers was never an easy life but things always seemed to work out. But her life could have been very different had her family not been given a chance at a fresh start in France. Given her tumultuous start in life, nonna feels deeply for Ukraine and all who are forced to flee their homes because of war and the greed of those in power. We can’t all be like the tough-as-nails gypsies who led thousands to a new life all those years ago, but we can educate ourselves on the crises which every day force people all over the world to flee the only life they have known for a chance at a better one. And if given the opportunity, we should welcome them into our communities with the compassion we could only hope to be shown if we were in their shoes. Phoebe Pin is a reporter at The Geraldton Guardian