Joe Yonules: The Journey Home

Joseph (“Joe”) Yonules had just turned 23 when he joined the International Brigades. His story illustrates the challenges that International Brigades volunteers faced when returning home during the chaotic months when Franco’s troops took over the last remnants of Republican Spain at the end of the civil war in early 1939.

Communist Commitments

**A Lithuanian daily published in New York, *Laisvé* (Freedom) reached the homes of Lithuanians across the United States. Yonules was one of its readers.**

Like many volunteers who signed the fan, Yonules was a child of European immigrants. His parents had migrated from Lithuania to the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. Yonules was born in Chicago in 1914 and grew up in South Beloit. His interest in the labor movement started early on in 1928 and was influenced by his father, a communist himself. Yonules joined the Communist Youth in Beloit and was elected president of his cell. His activism probably increased in the following decade as workers faced the hardships of the Great Depression. He sold communist pamphlets and helped organize strikes of the unemployed in Rockford, Illinois. He spoke Lithuanian and English and read The Daily Worker as well as Laisvé (Freedom), a Lithuanian newspaper associated with the Communist Party. His activities in the communist party raised his awareness of the conflict in Spain. In 1937, he left his job at a foundry and volunteered to fight for the beleaguered Republic

Time in Spain

Getting to Spain was not easy. France had closed its border with Spain in March 1937. After arriving in France, Yonules, like other volunteers of the International Brigades, had to cross the Pyrenees mountains separating France and Spain—at night and on foot to avoid the French patrols. Over the course of the war, the dangerous crossing cost the lives of more than 200 men before they even reached Spain. Yonules sailed from New York on the President Roosevelt in October 1937 and arrived in Spain on November 11. In Spain, Yonules joined the 15^th International Brigade and served in the 35^th Anglo-American battery. He fought for several months at the front, first at Teruel and later in Levante in the anti-tank battery of the 129^th Brigade with the other signatories of the fan.

Fleeing from Spain

Toward the end of the Spanish Civil War, many International Brigades volunteers faced long journeys home. In September 1938, as the Republican side was losing the war against Franco, Spanish Prime Minister Juan Negrín announced that the international volunteers would be withdrawn. Negrin hoped that if the Republicans stopped relying on the support of the International Brigades, the international community and the League of Nations would pressure Franco’s Nationalists to stop using military aid from Hitler and Mussolini. This, however, did not happen. The volunteers now had to flee, often under aerial bombardment.

Yonules’s group stayed in the Spanish city of Valencia awaiting repatriation. Meanwhile, Franco’s Nationalist forces continued their path toward victory with daily bombings of cities. People often had to dig for survivors in the rubble with bare hands. While in Valencia the internationals attended farewell ceremonies. At a similar event, in Barcelona, Dolores Ibarruri, the Spanish Communist leader, delivered a farewell speech that would become a classic. In it, she said:

**Dolores Ibarruri, *Pasionaria*, delivering her farewell speech to the International Brigades volunteers in Barcelona.**
Spanish Civil War and the Seafarers and Dockers.

Comrades of the International Brigades: Political reasons, reasons of state, the welfare of that very cause for which you offered your blood with boundless generosity, are sending you back, some to your own countries and others to forced exile. You can go proudly. You are history. You are legend…. We shall not forget you; and, when the olive tree of peace is in flower, entwined with the victory laurels of the Republic of Spain — return!

In October, Yonules and his fellow volunteers were transferred to Villanueva de Castellón, a town about twenty miles south of Valencia. There they were interviewed by the Repatriation Commission set up by the League of Nations to help them return to their home countries. The names of volunteers stranded in Europe were telegraphed from Barcelona in Spain to the United States. Two U.S. Consulate members worked frantically around the clock to ensure the return of the Americans. Finally, in January of 1939, the volunteers were able to leave for France. On January 25, Yonules was among 398 International Brigades volunteers who arrived in Cerbere, France, under the threat of aerial bombings. The group also included Carl Slater, another signatory of the fan.

As they crossed the border, some volunteers were detained in camps in France, others waited elsewhere for approval to return to the United States. Yonules remained in France for less than two weeks, waiting like other Americans for temporary visas issued by the U.S. government. These visas were necessary not only because the volunteers had entered Spain in violation of American and international law but also because their passports, once stored by the International Brigades, had been lost or given away. Yonules was lucky. He did not have to wait very long. He returned home aboard the President Harding on February 4, 1939.

Refugees and Camps

Not everyone was as fortunate as Yonules. Many International Brigades volunteers were stranded in France and detained in French camps together with about 500,000 Spanish refugees fleeing the country. Those who did not have American citizenship faced detention and delays. Among those were three signatories of the fan and its owner Hans Maslowski. Maslowski and John Stuivenberg were held in the camp of St. Cyprien. John Palu and Ramon Pedrero Pérez were held in Argèles-sur-Mer.

**Refugees built makeshift dwellings on the beach at the internment camp of Argèles-sur-Mer, March 1939. Wikimedia (Pyrenees Orientales Le Department)**

Sidney Kaufman, the Commissar of the Anti-Tank Battery of the 129^th Brigade, was also detained in Argèles-sur-Mer. During his earlier frantic and chaotic departure from Spain, Kaufman had kept a diary. While still in Spain, he had confided to his diary the disorganization and lack of food in the Spanish town where local families sheltered American volunteers who waited for permission to reenter the United States. In his diary, he also wrote about the camp conditions. Since there were not buildings to shelter the thousands of people seeking refuge, Kaufman, like others, slept outside. Many fell ill due to the poor living conditions in the camps.

The liberation of Mauthausen in 1945. The Spanish banner reads: “Los españoles antifascistas saludan a las fuerzas liberadoras.” (“Spanish Antifascists Salute the Liberating Forces.”). Wikimedia (Donald R. Ornitz, US Army).

Kaufman did not stay long in the camp. After a few days, he returned to the United States. Maslowski, Palu, Pedrero Pérez, and Stuivenberg would have to wait longer. When World War II started in September 1939, the refugees faced even more challenges. At least fifteen thousand Spanish Republican refugees as well as some of the international volunteers were later transferred to Nazi concentration camps like Mauthausen or Aurigny. Seven thousand of them were sent to Mauthausen alone. Over half of them died there, never making it home.

Back in Wisconsin

Joe Yonules was lucky to get back to the United States swiftly. He later served in World War II after enlisting in the U.S. Army on January 6, 1941. He served in the Coast Artillery Corps and Anti-Aircraft units from 1941 to 1944. He was injured in the line of duty. He eventually settled in South Beloit. He married Mary F. Burbank, and together they had two daughters, Carol and Gloria. He worked for the Beloit Corporation, a foundry company, until he retired in 1977. A year later, Yonules died at age 63 in South Beloit.

Yonules Profile