group took a street that was on an upgrade and led past the Church —~ one block to the right of it. There were about five of us in the group and as we started up the street Commissar Steve Nelson joined us. pis- tol in hand, alert, but with his usual cheerful smile on his face. VVe checked every house carefully, banging on the door and yelling to see if anybody was within. If there was no reply, we broke the door open with a beam carried along for this purpose a11d threw a couple of hand grenades inside just to make sure. Two men entered one of the houses without this precaution only to be brought back, a few minutes later, both bayoneted.

Our gro11p was ‘working both sides of the street at the same time. The men 011 one side were watching‘ very carefully the windows on the other side of the street on the look-out for snipers. I11 a few cases we found it necessary to shoot open the lock on the door before we were able to enter. In a short time all of the town was subdued with tl1e exception of the Church.

The civilians in the houses always responded to our call and soon all the townspeople were out of their hiding, women, children, babies, old men — all terror-stricken with their previous experiences. It wasn’t long before they realized they were among friends. We gave them coffee, water and food and they were soon talking excitedly, describing the misery the Fascists had inflicted on them.

-0!

When we reached the second house in one street we yelled in as before “Venga aqui!” and we heard muffled calls answering. ‘We dis- tinguished the voice of a woman and then we heard 1noa11s. VVe ca- lled for a Spanish comrade to talk to them and a mi11ute or two later o11t came a woman of about 35, and three small children, all crying to break your heart.

When they saw o11r reassuring gestures the woman threw her arms around Sid Bassim and kissed him while the -cl1ildre11 were clutching our legs in gratitude a11d protection.

We patted them gently o11 the head and while preparing to send them back to safety under escort we moved from the protection of the walls to the middle of the street without being aware of it. All of a sudden, a machine—gun up the street opened fire, spattering‘ bullets all around. VVe dashed back until we succeeded in rounding‘ the cor11er. We mana- ged to get the woman and one of the children back to safety with us, but the other two children, crazed by terror, ran back into the house.

Harry Rubin was less fortunate and he dropped with a bullet in his hip.

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