Canfranc station: Nazi gold, tungsten, Jews... what circulated in the Jaca tunnel

• History Edward VIII: the 'traitor' king who helped Hitler invade France to regain the British throne

• History Alfonso XIII, the king who died forgotten in exile and pronouncing "My God, Spain"

That day there was no raca.

Alfonso XIII arrived from Jaca to materialize a dream long cherished for seventy-five years.

On July 18, 1928, the great-grandfather of Felipe VI officially opened the Canfranc train station together with General Miguel Primo de Rivera and

What was the presence of the Gallic boss?

As there were two beaches of tracks due to the difference in rail gauge between the two countries, the station acquired international status with its

After the outbreak of World War II, Hitler saw in this border crossing the panacea to strengthen his empire with the approval of Franco, who compensated him for his

The leader allowed Hitler to colonize that small area of ​​the Arañones Valley and certain areas of Galicia where the

that was used to reinforce the armor of Nazi tanks and make piercing tips for anti-tank grenades.

As an example, there are the so-called 'black gold' mines in the parish of Casaio (Ourense) whose extraction was controlled by the Germans through the Sofindus conglomerate, whose president of the Board of Directors

-law and who by marriage held the title of VII count of Argillo.

In exchange, according to some authors, Franco received huge amounts of gold.

Canfranc station tunnelEuropa Press

In this way, the vaunted neutrality of Spain during the conflict is called into question,

which became a gigantic centrifuge to wash Nazi gold.

The vile metal was transported in Swiss trucks to the Canfranc station to start the journey to the Portugal of the dictator Salazar, who also sold tungsten.

What had been village stories, urban legends and rumors ended up becoming a reality when Jonathan Díaz, tour guide and

changed the course of history.

By chance, in November 2000, Díaz found on the floor of the station a kind of delivery note with numbers and a symbol that made him suspicious.

And he came back.

Much of the place was fairly clean because the Christmas lottery commercial had just been shot with

After the search, he found a thousand papers gnawed by time inside some trunks that were the irrefutable proof that the Nazi gold of Canfranc existed.

Between July 1942 and December 1944

(74.5 to Portugal and 12.1 to Spain).

The Gestapo and the SS controlled traffic at the station.

One of the greatest researchers on the subject for two decades is the journalist

, who has continued his investigations in El Heraldo de Aragón.

With Díaz's documents he brought to the fore one of the darkest historical moments of our country in the 20th century.

In fact, the newspaper echoed the real amount of gold bars as a result of the declassification of documents ordered by Bill Clinton in which it was certified that they were really 154 tons transported in Swiss trucks in 138 trips.

Canfranc stationEuropa Press

Not only gold was trafficked.

But another of the most notable historical milestones is that the station's border crossing acted as a driving force for the flight of hundreds of Jews to South America and North Africa.

His story has survived thanks to the emotional narrative sequences that radiographed the desire for survival and that were transmitted through generations.

In that mishmash of feelings

-her father died in the sinking of the Titanic and her uncle founded the Guggenheim museum- had a decisive role

To the multimillionaire socialite we owe the existence of

who paid their tickets to the promised land where the Lady of Liberty welcomed them.

Guggenheim sympathized with artists because the roots of his aristocratic family name are Ashkenazi Jewish.

In exchange, as an excellent visionary patron, she kept some of Ernst's paintings, who were unknown at the time and who later became her second and last husband.

All of them owe their lives to Albert Le Lay, the head of the French customs called

and tungsten traffic, but as a member of the French Resistance passed information to the British allies and He helped the Jews escape.

This area of ​​the Huesca Pyrenees became an extension of Casablanca (1942) by Bogart and Bergman in which Rick's Café had been transformed into the

Hitlerites, Jews, policemen, spies and people from the village.

Some famous Jews also went through the tunnel from Marseilles because

Le Lay turned a blind eye to the composer and editor Alma Mahler and the writer Heinrich Mann, whose masterpiece (Professor Unrat) was adapted for the cinema by Josef von Sternberg turning his protégé

in The Angel blue (1930)

Nicknamed the Blonde Venus, she was Paramount's counterweight to outshine Garbo in Metro Goldwyn Mayer and one of the most popular anti-Nazi symbols who said "no" to the Führer

.

The station had its moment of glamor with another Venus, in this case of Bronze.

The arrival of Joséphine Baker drew the gazes of onlookers as the music hall legend clad in her tiger-skin coat was joined by her husband,

.

Because of her work as a member of the French Resistance, last year Emmanuel Macron allowed her figure to rest in the Pantheon

In the town of Huesca, a network of pure hearts had been created under the supervision of Monsieur Le Lay.

Among them was that of Lola Pardo, who on the day of the presentation of Ramón J. Campo's book revealed her true identity:

She had been a spy.

However, to the rest of the town she was an affable dressmaker.

She, together with her sister Pilar de Ella, passed information to the British espionage network.

In 1970, the French unilaterally closed communication between the two countries.

The other

but it goes without saying that during the Third Reich the Nazis were in occupied France.

Two decades ago

The 150 doors and 365 windows will have a special shine at the end of the year when the Barceló Hotel Group opens a five-star hotel.

, flooded with history.

When LOC contacted José Luis Soro, counselor of the Department of Vertebration of the Territory, Mobility and Housing, he commented that

for the competitiveness of the companies, it puts Aragón in value for its geographical location and this area specifically, it will become an engine of economic development linked to tourism".

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