On this day, 30 March 1915, Francesc Sabaté Llopart, anti-fascist resistance fighter, and the most tenacious of the anti-Franco guerrillas, was born in Hospitalet de Llobregat, Catalonia.
With the outbreak of the civil war in 1936, Sabaté joined the anarchist Young Eagles column and fought against General Francisco Franco’s Nationalists on the Aragon front. After the defeat of the Republic, Sabaté was interned in a concentration camp in France, and later joined the French resistance against Nazi occupation.
Following the end of World War II he re-entered Spain and joined the growing underground resistance the regime. Amongst his many legendary exploits he freed other imprisoned activists, robbed banks, assassinated fascist leaders and cheated death on many occasions.
After robbing the home of a wealthy Franco supporter, Manuel Garriga, Sabaté left a note which read: “We are not robbers, we are libertarian resistance fighters. What we have just taken will help in a small way to feed the orphaned and starving children of those anti-fascists who you and your kind have shot. We are people who have never and will never beg for what is ours. So long as we have the strength to do so we shall fight for the freedom of the Spanish working class. As for you, Garriga, although you are a murderer and a thief, we have spared you, because we as libertarians appreciate the value of human life, something which you never have, nor are likely to, understand.”
Sabaté outlived nearly all of the other active resistance fighters, only eventually succumbing to the bullets of the Civil Guard in 1960.
This short book about his life is highly recommended: https://libcom.org/history/sabate-guerrilla-extraordinary-antonio-tellez https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1683277671857376/?type=3