Virgilio Peña

Virgilio Peña (born January 2, 1914 near Espejo , Province of Córdoba , † July 6, 2016 in Billère near Pau , France ) was a veteran of the Spanish Civil War and the Resistance .

Peña, son of a farming family, was born in 1914 in a small village near Espejo in the Spanish province of Cordoba. As a teenager he was active in the agricultural union and various Marxist and revolutionary groups.

When war broke out across Spain in 1936 and Franco's nationalists began their murderous advance, Peña, just 22 years old, hung a Republican flag on his balcony and joined the Republican army. He participated in many battles and experienced the horrors of war until Franco seized power and Peña, along with half a million other people, retreated to France.

There Peña volunteered for the Resistance to help fight the Nazis. He hoped that the fall of the Third Reich would also destroy the Franco dictatorship and liberate Spain. Peña was captured and brutally tortured by the Vichy regime before being handed over to the Nazis. They took him to the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar. For years he saw thousands of people murdered there. He was known to the prisoners as El Campesino (the farmer).

When Peña was liberated by American soldiers in 1945, he weighed only 42 kilograms and had no home anywhere. His way led him back to France, where he worked as a carpenter. He was named " Knight of the Legion of Honor " for his work with young people, whom he educated about the dangers of fascism . In his hometown a street was named after him.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Peña, Virgilio
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	El Campesino
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Spanish veteran of the Spanish Civil War and the Resistance
DATE OF BIRTH	January 2, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH	at Espejo
DATE OF DEATH	July 6, 2016
Place of death	Billère at Pau