JUST REMEMBERING

The most tragic years after civil war of the modern era that Spain has suffered is without doubt the forties of the twentieth century after the Civil War. An economic recession caused havoc s in a divided and battered country, where, according to statistics, a population of 26,000,000 inhabitants 300,000 had taken the road of l exile, nearly as much crowded prisons of Franco 's government won a bloody civil war. 
The same year that ended in theory that contest the necessary ration cards were introduced to buy any kind of food that were in grocery stores as well as to provide themselves with chips or charcoal to ignite the fire.

The catastrophic dietary and social situation was reflected in the emergence of tuberculosis whose only prevention then, as it still was not known in the country penicillin, was to live in hygienic rooms huge Llen to s beds  and eat nutritiously trying that out galore. 

Hunger and forced cohabitation of large numbers of people in unwholesome places was the common denominator. 
In my case I have come to know when I was little whole families composed of parents and three brothers live in a room with an area no more than 9 square meters and whose use was dining, living room and bedroom, was commonplace in poor families, having to share toilet facilities, kitchen and laundry room with other families living in the same building.Emiliano lived at number four on the street Amalia, the new house listening to comment as the other children, but right at number five co - existed more than twenty families in tiny flats where not even had toilet. There were four p equeña s homes per each floor consisting of four high s more low, five families per floor plus the inhabitants of the bass. 
In the middle of the property there was a courtyard with a fountain commu nity and be ie galleried the q ue was accessible to different homes. 
Hovels without light or ventilation where entire families were crowded.   
We called him "five" and fights or brawls that originated in the building were sounded to the point that ever came together armed police to restore order. My street was a showcase of irresponsible childhood was not aware of anything, so happy, frightened by adults living in very poor salaries and broken dreams by war and misery.

I can not remember a happy childhood but if fun. When you do not know anything other than hunger around you mixed with bad clothes, lack of minimum comfort and dour faces everywhere come to think that the world is like and do not understand the always grumpy and wanting to spank adults at the slightest . Flogging on the back and slaps in the face were our daily bread any small or great mischief. The more repression greatest thrill in being naughty and concoct games cabreran the unhappy older. We loved playing "knock on doors" tying each other by a securely attached to the rope handles. They beat the twosimultaneously running and hiding we threw to see the results.

Laughter or screams betray and ended by sprinting ahead of him as aggrieved women who in the end managed to open their doors. It was the most div ertido. 

In summer firecrackers he was thrown through a window open on the ground floor.

The explosion in an enclosure reduced could be thunderous and always was best put by land pissed off when neighbors came out to punish us ad e quately.

Complaints, fights, more complaints from parents and offspring naughty crios was the common standard in l a small street where he lived mos my sisters and myself.

Crios other games were more harmless to n ur parents, tired of working and caring for a small bunch of savages who spent hours swarming the street if not had school.

Girls played l truque also knock or hopscotch and jump rope, when like the guy played together to "boost the Maya" or the hiding, cops and robbers on your take her, or re scate.
All these were winter games because with the cold it Convenia run to get warm. 

In spring or summer had we more sedate games, balls, racing sheets, the Bonis or pinswith colored heads that were placed in so- called pincushions. 
Interca always they mbiaban "Chromos" or stamps that sold the newsagents in sealed envelopes to five or ten cent imos peseta .

Salian films currently published as card collection that boys without distinction of sex they collected and exchanged in their cliques. 
Vendian corresponding albunes to go sticking with explanatory texts of the differentsituations in these collections source movies. 

Also he had more luxuries collections as they were very expensive to collect, one that was exciting for everyone er to "Races Human as" as with the imagination to faraway places where they lived strangers, different beings, illustrating the collection traveled. 
The first beginnings of trading cards were in black and white , Frankestein, Frankestein and Wolfman, The Mummy, ultimatum to Earth, and as is logical collections of famous footballers that boys treasured as precious assets.  

Who couldbored with such istimulos, trading cards, badges, tops, marbles, jacks, jump rope, hideseek, warm hands, and so countless games and pastimes hcornflower apparently minu cough hours spent in the middle of the street. 

Although ten iamos at the end of the street Amalia a place we called "esplanade"  where inmiddle of nowhere, a large, dry wasteland, was an idealfor thirty or forty boys and girls organize their games without disturbing anyone place. Sometimes on the esplanade she had puppets, jugglers, and even cabrto a trumpet blast was climbed to as a lto of a staircase and made balances and even climb on a chair.  
Any small event or this Idole to delight the whole chiquillería including his parents who sat in the holy land and the p iernas cross we watched open - mouthed. 

On other occasions and I walk a bit but not approaching the "dustbin" located in the open, and there boys and girl s rebuscabamos in the trash an object that simply make us grace or surprise. Some broken for a bonfire of newspapers furniture and helped the boys howdo we werewe drew our little thing without féminas and Orin we were going over the fire to extinguish. 
Ot ras occasions we were doing competitions to see who alcalzaba further with the jet. 

Anything that would be fun or authentic s pranks was well coming for the children who were then. 
There were two older with not very well differentiated groups, got together at all and those of similar age who always had something secret or forbidden to tell on the subject outside although normally the shots were going in the same direction , the female world and its mysteries.  
As came the children, what they did boy and girl, "mete takes" as we said between us and the great mystery would soon be known is where came the peq uenos after being in the belly of the mother , besides l that a women were pregnant and others do not, what was the process or method favored such a cultural issue. 
Really did not know anything, all speculations were secret we were trying to unravel without asking who could tell us absolutely, our parents or educator is that it was never a taboo subject. 
He never talked about it with anyone but adult or indeed no parents reported their children about such issues. 

******
Nunce knew, in spite of having sisters, what they were talking girls among them when they were similar to the OU age of seven, eight or nine years, for soon they were removed from the street algarabia and were you held and in their home s. They were becoming young ladies dressed differently and no longer playing with the boys. 
E n schools separation of the sexes was extreme and there were very few schools with teaching s for both children s and girls, always in separate classes. 
The world fem enyne from ten or eleven wasan absolute mystery to us guys and even most of the time absolutely incomprehensible. 

In my case having sisters at home everything was easier, necessarily coexistence made known facets fem enynes the other guys do not know anything and of course I did not say nor pa till. 
Our sibling relationship was perfec ta and our secrets were kept with absolute zeal for everyone, the first for our parents not er an awareness of our world well - matched brothers kept playing together respecting that if our modesty and life intimate.

If our parents were going to the movies and we were left alone at home for three of us was a real party. The whole house for the three brothers , move through it, record each and every bosillos ALG looking for a lost especially money. But there were also records in the nightstands, drawers l desk, fashion show where the girls clothes and shoes my mother became, cigarettes smoked with large coughs, pellets pap bent projected by slingshot rubber sob re the q ue they passed under or in front of our balconies and laughter, lots oflaughter and absolute freedom until night to closed. 
At nightfall he began fear or dread that someone was lurking under the bed, in the closet or walked through a window. 
Thoroughly were checking the house to check that no one could be inside her with us and even then we were comfortable with our nocturnal solitude. 
In the forty power outages they were frequent and if this was happening child paroxysm of fear came to extremes of pure hysteria. 

His too Torias told by our grandmother, tales sacamantecas or in clu so some as movies los forty exibian to The Mummy, Frankenstein or Nosferatu .  

In our areal district of Tetuan to the Cua tro Caminos were six neighborhood theaters, continuous session and mpezaban at four repeated followed the two pe Movie s to put at least two or three times , depended on how long they were and when they cast the closing.
Used to be at 0:30 or one o'clock , that is eight or nine hours straight, with short breaks, film and something called NODE was a compendium of all news favorable to the regime. 
If Franco in agura this or that used to be swamps, that if Real Madrid have won this or that party, or if such personality or movie star has arrived at Barajas airport.

It was very high - profile arrival in Madrid of Eva Peron in June 1947 when all doors were closed to him Spain. 
Wine stir and pro paganda as collaborative agreements for both countries signed, Spain was isolated, and likewise Argentina I bring wheat from the generous hand of the visitor who was touring the cities and towns in a very poor country Feli z to receive such unusualand generous visit. 
Acclaimed and cheered the leader Argentina walk your palm and elegance to the length and breadth of Spain by signs of a generous help by sending ships loaded with wheat grains as needed to make bread.   
Postwar period without aid of any Idole, we leave ian outside the Marshal plan was eated to help Recoveries eration of Western European countries devastated after the Second World War, they were extremely grateful for the visit of such an ambassador. The Marshall Planofficially calledEuropean Recovery Program, ERP was an initiative ofUSto helpWestern Europe, where the Americans gave financial aid worth about 13 000 million dollars of the time for rebuilding countries devastated Europe afterWorld War II

. The plan was in operation for four years from April 1948. The US objectives were torebuild those areas destroyed by war, eliminate barriers to trade, modernize European industry and make the continent prosperous again; All these goals were intended to prevent the spread of communism , which had a large and growing influence in post - war Europe. ¹ The Marshall Plan required a reduction in interstate barriers, less regulation of business and encouraged increased productivity , the union membership and new models of "modern" business

Eva Peron, Evita, efermó of cervical cancer three years after his visit to Spain and die with 33 years in July 1952 causing great costernación and pain to millions of Argentines and even countless Spaniards grateful remembered for many years his clamorous visit to Spain when no one deigned to appear for his country. 

About to turn four when Eva Peron visited Spain still keep some memory of the comments that led to his visit, as well as the widespread agradacemiento aroused your support to our hungry country. 
The regime took advantage of his arrival for his own self - promotion as you would in subsequent years. 

el gatufo

CHILDHOOD IN MADRID

I return to my childhood in Madrid forties and I can still remember that:


With five small years of the three brothers went to school outside his home every day of the week except Sunday. 
He clung to the hand of the master, José Luis, to feel protected, older joked that it was so small and timidity urged him not to participate in the games and fights constantly initiated at recess. 

Furthermore, despite being so small he showed more intelligence and ability than other children, soon began to write, to read and less than six years and knew the four arithmetic rules. 
When he learned to divide by two figures close to seven years meet the envy felt by the general era, and more frequently cryo clung to the master's hand whenever they went out to recess.

Of each of the hands of the teacher hung the two smallest class, one they called Angelín was even more tiny and chubby as well, bringing the taunts were even more hurtful. The two boys were cronies and protect each other from other madmen older than them. 

How clever this cryo commented Emilianito parents, so called, seven years old and already knows divide by two figures. When he heard these words was very proud and strutting like a chicken before her older sisters went to a convent school and did not learn anything about arithmetic or grammar. 
The nuns taught them manners only for little girls, prayers, sewing, and especially strict obedience. 

Girls should go to school the nuns, attached to a convent, very clean clothes, combed her hair in braids, and especially face and hands washed and rubbed over and over again. 
No flyaways, bows, or ornaments of any kind are allowed if there had been money for them. Hairpins to hold the hair, a rubber braids and nothing else.

No wonder then that lice and fleas proliferate in the heads and bodies of children. The lack of running water in the houses, old mattresses and proximity to certain pets, donkeys, dogs, stray cats and other species, made certain lack of hygiene would encourage the emergence of all sorts of nasty pests fleas, lice and other insects, it was common to see viciously scratching the smaller and even adults spent enough of hygiene. In other flea and lice abounded bugs in mattresses, cockroaches in the bunkers where chips were stored and coal, spiders, cortapichillas, crickets, mosquitoes, especially flies of all kinds and sizes.



 

At crios of them washed in bowls, when they caught him, and the older people had to spend their money on heating water and buy soap to wash up, and these rare chores when neither so was not even money to buy bread or oil. 

In Spain forty cleaning was not exactly a major issue. The main thing was toeat, keep warm, and go to the cinema to dream of American films always "censored" showing a much better world in which to live. 
With open mouths and wide - eyed children and adults they followed the stories of heroes and heroines Hollywood.

The Westers and swordsmen were preferred by the small fry, adults liked comedies Lubisch or musicals Fred Astaire and Judy Garland as " Top Hat" (Top Hat) where they danced endlessly, laughing it is going well and luxury cruises where lavish parties and leisure enlivened were made. All these films were distracting people from their everyday problems of subsistence, battling the cold and hunger with dreams of a distant paradise where all were happy and well fed. The Indians were always killed by the cavalry, ill paid their sins, the players always end up together in marriage, but no kissing or erotic scenes minimally. 



In fact sex was like there, and everything was sin including dances and carnivals. 

Theaters crowded neighborhood gave warm enough to spend the afternoon and be comfortable with sessions of two or three always bent, mutilated and censured by the regime and the Church who could not tolerate a pronounced cleavage movies, skirts above the knee, or swimsuits daring. 
The characters always honest, faithful, good and evil were lousy always paid dearly for their wickedness. 

Kisses and caresses of the protagonists were nonexistent, they were always cut in its infancy, whistles or pateos in the film were extended before the courts, suppressed dialogues and even scripts that had nothing to do with the original.


 


Famous was "Mogambo" film of the year fifty-three directed by John Ford and starring Clark Gable, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly, Donald Sinden , where the story was cut, dialogue changed and distorted the script so that the marriage of Grace Kelly and Donald Sinden in its dubbed into Castilian version were brothers who were sleeping in the same tent, and so adultery script that starred Grace Kelly and Clark Gable, intolerable at the time was avoided, without realizing that instead of adultery they gave rise to incest and jealousy of the brother to his sister, but incompressible matter if the movie was great and African animals hunted with impunity in the safaris were seen.

Based on cuts some films were incomprehensible, without much significance because it was already known that censorship was working nonstop, so to see swordsmen, Indians, cowboys, dancing, luxury homes and cruises all was well received and commented. 


The boys were collecting their small savings collections of trading cards all hit movies, Mogambo, King Solomon's Mines, The Three Musketeers, Franquenstein, Mystery Of The Wax Museum, Ivanhoe, and many more that used to take months, or even years, on billboards cinemas La Gran Via, which entoces called Avenida de Jose Antonio, as many of the streets and avenues of Madrid had renamed.

An absolute example is the Paseo de la Castellana had changed its name toAv. Generalissimo, as in almost all the Spanish cities so that the names of the winners fought in the Civil War to rename its main streets and avenues. 

Each and every one of the heroes, or saviors of the country assumptions, want their names on streets, squares and monuments effigies of all kinds.Nothing changes in the sun and human vanity has no limits. Street, my street, for the kids was total bliss, paradise games and fun.




 
Toys needed to participate were a marbles to play "gua", some pins with colored heads they called "Bonis" a nice piece of paper to make a pincushion and stick pins in, some plates to play "plates" or races, a top wood and string. 

Also a tabas the lamb for the "Tabas" a file or skewer to play "robaterrenos" a rope to the "rope", a ball for the "quiet feet" or play a game, and sometimes some trading cards to exchange or letting them play the cards fall from a height in Parez and if mounted one above the other you stayed with everyone. 

"Even or odd" 
Who had an old deck was the sumun of pleasure as there were dozens of different card games in which trading cards, comics, pins, or plates are betting marbles. 
Gambled money is not he who had practically no money ?, or if the parents had found out anger or smacks, for sure. 

For all other games do not need anything at all, inventiveness, imagination, desire to run and sometimes very cold to warm hands or feet.

 Living under a harsh dictatorship watching and absolutely controlled everything, secret police plainclothes guarding transport and that at any time could request documents to anyone, street delicuencia was almost nonexistent, the boys roamed freely at their discretion without the parents worry that puediera happen some mishap, there was nothing to steal and so could hardly have heists. 

So much vigilance considered sexual offenses, including exhibitionism, homo sexuality in men or women, street prostitution, or any form of abuse or molestation of any kind was exercised. 

On all these issues very strict supervision exercised 
by parents and neighbors. 

In summer the boys and girls playing in the street until the wee hours of the morning, half past one or two, there was no school and houses were authentic ovens. 


Neighbors, mostly in single - storey houses, out in the middle of the street with chairs and formed cliques to chat, play cards or whatever. There were rivalries and gossip of all kinds, some groups did not speak with each other and were not uncommon quarrels and discussions voices reaching hands once very rare for fear of ending up in the police station. 

Summer was the favorite season to play and go out, everyone, no television and people only had the chat group for fun and hang out.

The land is watered beforehand to give fresh and babbling or play a dominoes or cards until the wee hours of the morning. 
When the cool of the morning, every "mochuelo his olive tree" and try to get some sleep until time to get up and go to the job came. Chiquillería was happy in those evenings, nights, early mornings, when time stopped and there was no rush for anything. Just being with friends and invent a game to hang. Happy times of scarcity and hard bread, summer games and winter. Evenings radio by the brazier if it rained or was icy winter, comics to share, or a board game that reunited the family without something else to pass the time.

Very hot summers, botijo, nap and early mornings on the street without knowing that soon cesarian these customs rennet, television once made an appearance in every one of the cities and towns of postwar Spain. 

Nothing better to play the kids in the neighborhood of Tetuan street in the forties, each had its panda and of course the boys did not play a street or formed alliances with other different. 

The fights were rare, much supervision and surveillance by the authorities of the regime Francoist so that not even the boys fought among themselves, as a 'drea "with small pebbles that could escalbrarte if you beat full, never was a serious injury, a small gap, a little blood and expect to be cured.

Collection of small stones that were previously agreed was done, they got into their pockets and flexible reeds catapults hurled as if they were the boys and girls on the opposite side. 
It noticed a play time and unless a rival surrendered no winners or losers. 

The "Drea" or slingshot, always played in the clearings that had trees or boulders to hide, and it was common to find it near the area there was a place for ornament polished blocks of houses or graves. 
Winter or fall taking advantage of the cold and lack of people by wastelands was a good time to take a "dreas or a" throwing stones ", although the latter tended to be more dangerous because the stones were larger. 
Not all boys or girls participated in them because they had no real fear of being escalabrados and then at home received a good thrashing her mother.Of the three hemanos, medium and small were involved in the "dreas" not in "throwing stones" because they had some fear of the consequences if proved descalabrados. "Lift the Maya" was another very favorable for the winter games in the evenings cold, like "El Rescate" the "Hideout" or "Cops and Robbers". In every part of Spain they were called differently but essentially were very similar. The rules of the "rescue" or "Hide and Seek" were:

The rescue

Which he is bound missed lots and had to count to one hundred so that others give them time to hide. As was finding his hidden companions he had to say caught / ay take them to a place. Which bound, as was looking for other hidden would have to do it carefully because someone could come out of hiding and run the place were his companions and shout: saved! In this way, he saved his companions that they would have to hide.

And for "Hike the Maya"

" A game of boys in the province of Alava: is to hide all but one left in the care of an object, usually a stone, which the Maya name is given. The launch is to reach the Maya before the charge to care when he leaves her to discover the hidden ". When Maya or object is played without being seen and named by seeking the hidden s the guy or girl were saved and among those remaining if one was discovered he would play guard the Maya.


When he was looking forward to a hidden vigilante seeker had to get to the stone or object before the descibierto, touching the Maya or object and shout Boosts Maya by Pepe, or Carmen, and that would be to take care of Maya and seek to hidden in the next turn.

Nothing better or more fun for these kids who have a gang in the street and go play all mixed, boys and girls, very different games that lack of other entertainment practiced in the street.

And if I go back to my four years it is curious that the memory

long night of the times:

There is a small school in front of the house where the three brothers live, is similar to that of a people because you only have a classroom full of small banks, a blackboard and a single water that alquien is responsible for cleaning from time to time. 

There is a young teacher who is in charge of controlling a crowd of forty or fifty guys who are among the four or five to eight or nine years. All together without girls, no haphazardly because some can not read and others already know the four arithmetic rules. 
Difficult task of D. Jose Luis teach something to these kids who only think about playing and scream the better.

Recess is out all the street watched by the teacher and down to a field where they can run and play fooball with a rag ball most of the time. 

They have decided in the house, the smallest of the three brothers go to school despite being very young, four years old, just cross a narrow dirt road, no cars driving by, and so the mother will a moment of peace and having the kids at school. 

Her sisters have begun to go to a convent school, just for girls, and so the mother of three little devils feel more relaxed to do their daily chores stretching as much as possible the money to make ends meet with enough at least to eat.

The cryo only four years and since the first day the teacher has stuck like a limpet, is afraid between boys twice his age, brutes who fight and stick kicking a kind of balloon formed by tight rags. When they go out to recess at it grabs the hand of Don Jose Luis and not loose at all times. 
It is a quiet cryo, suffered and quiet that immediately endeared gives the teacher. Learns very quickly and with less than five years begins to read and write. 

All around there are other children who are more advanced, have an encyclopedia book in learning a little of everything, geography, history, religion, arithmetic and little else. Too much work for one teacher who attends dozens of boys in different stages of learning.
When the teacher is tired sums simply copy a few subtractions and some multiplication on the blackboard, sentences, and tells them to solve the various accounts and fill a sheet of notebook repeating phrases with good handwriting blackboard. 

The morning passed without feeling herding a slap to rule the most rebellious.  
It is a good teacher, understanding and patient with the kids even though some are gross and reaccios solve the work that puts them. They never learn enough and very few years when they leave school iran pinches, apprentices or laborers to any work or shop around. 

The economy of their parents do not give more, and require them to contribute some money as soon as possible, no laws regulating the work of the boys and sometimes little more than support the guys working in the cities of the Spain of postwar little more than eleven or twelve. 

In the villages the boy and girls begin to work in the field before nine or ten years. Too many mouths to feed many arms need to earn a daily wage of misery. Better than nothing, no options, studying the rich or the privileged who have parents who work from dawn to dusk and even at night just to bring sustenance and their offspring procurle studies.


Emiliano, the father of this cryo, also Emiliano, and his two older than Hemanas, Paquita and Esther, was born in a small village of Burgos. 
Only a few years he studied at the village school although it was enough to know how crucial it is to have knowledge or study all the better to develop a well - paid profession. 
Because only they will study the rich? he wonders, my children will have theopportunity to study and train to get a good job where you earn enough. 
All his eagerness to work long hours is to give the best to his family and especially to provide their children the opportunity to study the more thebetter, for it has inherited some books in her grandfather 's uncle priest. 

The kids devoured those books again and again as they can read them and will be sooner rather than later. There are a total of forty books on different topics. Some novel "The Last Days of Pompeii", "Oliver Twist" "The two little orphans" and some of Jules Verne. Also a "Christian Year" tooled leather - wrapped that is the jewel of the collection. There are twelve books, one for each month, and come the lives of all the saints that the Catholic Church celebrates every day. 
Also a small encyclopedia-dictionary in three volumes, where the kids are busy all the words refer to "prohibited" that are occurring, and of course their definitions. 
They learn what is "carnally" "cohabit" "strumpet"

Sexual subject is taboo in Spain forties and nobody talks about it, just the next puberty or boys talk offspring secret of these issues. 
When they discover a new word or definition transmit each other causing the overlapping laughter and dissembling if any more is interested in their conversations. 


Ours was a box on a tiny street of Tetuan, three little brothers face the momentous decision to eat an ounce of chocolate with your piece of bread, hard, or spend the pennies in a comic strip. 

To buy the new tebeo need seventy-five cents and are unhappy with buy one and shared possession of it. 
No, that's not an option, each must weigh the alternative of being left without breakfast, breadstick and ounce of chocolate a peseta, or invest the money he has given his mother for breakfast in a wonderful tebeo of "Antifaz Warrior" cartoon lasts forever cavil, and breadstick with chocolate we eat in an instant. 
At the end they buy two and the breadstick and two ounces of chocolate spread among the three. 

Everything is clear secret, her mother can not find out who skip breakfast and go to school happy with his comics and almost empty belly. The life of these crios in Spain misery feeds on dreams, heroes, and neighborhood theaters. 
Child sitting in a cinema "pipero" cost a peseta fifty cents and was a constant aspiration for them that her mother pay them a weekly entry. 

Dreaming and living the adventures of the characters graphics transcurria life without too much upheaval in an environment of happiness apparent, unreal, it was for them the best of all worlds. 

Wooden swords, stones, files to play "robaterrenos" in moist soil, to truque girls, and "camber" mixed boys and girls. Around him was manifest poverty, small houses and hovels without light or ventilation where whole families sometimes lived without running water or a toilet sharing between neighbors.


These crios wondered the reason that his mother and many of her neighbors often seemed angry. Conducive to slap, or more, to their children when they got a shot. 
At the slightest, bam, slap and shut up. 

The next second forgotten the slap returned to her world of illusion, fantasy games and rereading dozens of times the same cartoons, exchanging their idols with cronies, or trying to catch a "fat bitch" (ten cents of peseta) to change the tebeo less appreciated in the kiosk on the corner. Sometimes instead of changing his precious treasure other than the kids in the neighborhood miracle could hire another graphic to another senior colleague who possessed an assorted collection coveted by all.

The exibian deployed on the ground floor when it was dry, deployed and subjects with small shingle so that all the kids they were made salivating watching the dream stories of their heroes at your eyes. 

Do not dreamed of cakes or chicken, only "Carpanta" imagined in their roasted chickens stories unachievable for him and all the guys in all neighborhoods. 
And they knew ?, cakes cakes? . 

Idea, cakes, candies or pastries were not identified in a hungry and tatty Spain where objects get some loaves of bread was almost impossible mission by price and scarcity.

After the Second World War the shortage became really unbearable, Spain was isolated, locked as punishment for their support of Nazi losers. There was no international institution in which it was admitted, and the Marshall Plan of 1947 did not reach the Spanish lands as a result of their support forthe loser regime. 

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 The Marshall Plan (officially called European Recovery Program or ERP ) was the most important plan of the United States for the reconstruction of countries Europeans after World War II , which in turn was intended to contain a possible advance communism .  

After six years of war, much ofEurope was devastated and millions of people had died or been crippled. The fighting had occurred virtually everywhere, covering a much larger area than had been affected during the First World War . Because of aerial bombardment, most of the cities were severely damaged, especially the industrial areas that had been the main targets of these bombings. Berlin and Warsaw were mountains of rubble, and Londonand Rotterdam They had been badly affected. The economic situation of the continent had come to nothing and millions of people were destitute.Although the episode of Dutch hunger of 1944 could be resolved, the general devastation of agriculture provoked a wave of hunger throughout Europe, compounded by the harsh winter of 1946 - 1947 in northeastern Europe. They were also destroyed infrastructure such as the railways , thebridges and roads , which had been the main target of aerial bombardment, and many ships load had been sunk. The smallest municipalities had not suffered both the ravages of war, but the lack of transport networks had left practically isolated both physically and economically. 

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to the devastation of post - Civil War in Spain the European famine which hit exports in the years of war in Europe joined. 
Once the Second World War these small exports came to an end, lacking own resources hunger, loneliness, international isolation against Dictatorial Fascist regime in Spain was absolute and total. 
Nobody wanted to do it traded nor a pariah country that had supported the regime of Nazi Germany, and poor survivors of a Spanish Civil War itself, trying to overcome the situation of the most unimaginable ways. 

It preyed all, not throwing anything, the dustbins were slow to fill up days, and when the "garbage truck" pulled by a mule passed through the dilapidated streets without pavement boys or flocked women lend the street with bucket in hand for it to be emptied into the truck. 

Summer plague was bearable because few products had any chance of rot.Any susceptible organic food being eaten in the family had disappeared stomachs and actually had very few things that can be thrown away.  
A small cart pulled by one or two mules was sufficient to cover residual needs of countless streets of the neighborhood. 
The cars were provided by the "rag pickers" called that charge to tour the neighborhoods, with permission from the authority and waste pile up in so-called "dumps" mushrooming by the dozen on the outskirts of the capital 'sneighborhoods.

For boys and girls in the neighborhood there was nothing more fun than Amalia down the street and get into the "dustbin" of the small area. There bonfires were organized and urinated on them, is rummaging in trash and always appeared a curious and useless object, as rag pickers had previously stockpiled rags, paper, or junk that could report some pesetas.

The gatufo