{"id":6619,"date":"2022-02-19T18:47:00","date_gmt":"2022-02-20T00:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.daveomeara.com\/home\/?p=6619"},"modified":"2022-10-19T10:16:55","modified_gmt":"2022-10-19T15:16:55","slug":"three-catalan-impostors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.daveomeara.com\/home\/6619\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Works, Three Lives"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Leer en espa\u00f1ol<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Impostor: A True Story<\/a>, by Javier Cercas, <\/strong>
Translation by Frank Winne
A Borzoi Book, Published by Alred A. Knopf, 2017<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Garbo the Spy<\/a>, a documentary <\/strong>
Produced and directed by Edmon Roch
In English, Spanish and Catalan, 2011<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
The Man Who Loved Dogs<\/a>, by Leonardo Padura
Translated from the Spanish by Anna Kushner
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York 2014<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Thanks to three narratives of three very different kinds \u2014 a work of literary non-fiction, a documentary film, and an historical novel \u2014 I recently came in contact with three accomplished impostors from Catalonia. All three were born in Barcelona between 1912 and 1921, all fought \u2014 well, in one case, avoided fighting \u2014 on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War, and all three became historical figures of the 20th Century \u2014 well,  in one case, claimed to be such a figure \u2014 by means of stunning acts of trickery and deception.  These three lives, and the works that portray them, raise important questions about how we as humans respond to truth and lies, fact and fiction.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Tres
Juan Pujol Garc\u00eda<\/strong>, Enric Marco Battle<\/strong>, Ram\u00f3n Mercader del R\u00edo<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The first of these men (and as of this writing, the only one still living) is Enric Marco Battle<\/strong>, a working-class Barcelonian who gradually embellished his life story \u2014 the life of a survivor, eventful and picaresque if not particularly honorable \u2014 into a tale of heroism appropriate to his personal magnetism and tireless energy.  Late in life, Marco found fame as the leader of an organization of the Spanish survivors of the Nazi concentration camps, despite the fact that he himself had only visited the camps as a tourist, decades later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Juan Pujol Garc\u00eda<\/strong>, the second impostor, came from a different social stratum of the same city: he was the son of a factory owner in Barcelona. During World War II, Pujol offered his services as a spy to both the British and the Germans. Pujol soon became one of the Allies\u2019 most important double agents, not by doing the normal work of a spy (the revelation of secret truths), but instead through the creation and dissemination of extravagant falsehoods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally we have Ram\u00f3n Mercader del R\u00edo<\/strong>, another son of the Catalan bourgeoisie, who achieved infamy by a crime far more serious than mere imposture.  Mercader left the front lines of the Spanish Civil War \u2014 recruited by his mother for a new assignment \u2014 to undergo training in Russia for a secret mission. After three years of preparation \u2014 and so deeply undercover that his false identity had a false identity \u2014 Mercader murdered Leon Trotsky in Coyoac\u00e1n, Mexico, in 1940.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The irony is that now, roughly a century after these impostors were born, the one whose deception was most insignificant has become the one most reviled by public opinion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thanks to three narratives of three very different kinds \u2014 a work of literary non-fiction, a documentary film, and an historical novel \u2014 I recently came in contact with three accomplished impostors from Catalonia. All three were born in Barcelona between 1912 and 1921, all fought \u2014 well, in one case, avoided fighting \u2014 on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War, and all three became historical figures of the 20th Century \u2014 well,\u00a0 in one case, claimed to be such a figure \u2014 by means of stunning acts of trickery and deception.\u00a0 →Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6626,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","episode_type":"audio","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"series":[80],"class_list":["post-6619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crystal-cabinets","series-three-catalan-impostors"],"episode_featured_image":"https:\/\/www.daveomeara.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/tres_impostores-e1677001142241.jpg","episode_player_image":"https:\/\/www.daveomeara.com\/home\/wp-content\/plugins\/seriously-simple-podcasting\/assets\/images\/no-album-art.png","download_link":"","player_link":"","audio_player":false,"episode_data":{"playerMode":"dark","subscribeUrls":[],"rssFeedUrl":"https:\/\/www.daveomeara.com\/home\/feed\/podcast\/three-catalan-impostors","embedCode":"

Three Works, Three Lives<\/a><\/blockquote>