Antonio García Barón

Who was Antonio García Barón?

Antonio García Barón was described by the BBC as the last surviving member of the Durruti Column, an anarchist militia in the Spanish Civil War.

After the Civil War he was in France early in the Second World War and was present at the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940, before being captured and sent by the Nazis to Mauthausen concentration camp. Whilst at the camp, he met Himmler, "I told when he visited the Mauthausen quarry on 27 April 1941, what a great couple the made with the Church. He replied that it was true, but that after the war I would see all the cardinals with the Pope marching there, pointing at the chimney of the crematorium.".

After the liberation of Mauthausen, he lived in Paris for a time, as a stateless person. He moved to Bolivia in the 1950s on the advice of his friend Gaston Leval, seeking a place without priests. He moved to the village of San Buenaventura on the Quiquibey River, then later moved 60 km further into the jungle to set up an anarchist community. For the first 5 years there was only himself and his Bolivian wife Irma, later their 4 children. Some 30 nomadic Indians joined them.

Antonio García Barón was reported to have died on 17 November 2008.