José Ester Borrás (1913 - 1980)

Sun Oct 26, 1913

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José Ester Borrás, born on this day in 1913 in Barcelona, Spain, was an anarchist active in the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) and the Spanish Civil War.

In 1938, Borrás was arrested by the communists for allegedly shooting a political commissar and held in prison until Francisco Franco won the war. He fled to France, where he took part in the escape and evasion network led by anarcho-syndicalist Francisco Ponzán Vidal. While in France, Borrás was arrested and deported to the concentration camp Mauthausen, where he was part of the committee that planned prisoner revolts that successfully self-liberated the camp.

After achieving his freedom, Borrás returned to France in 1945 and founded FEDIP (Federación Española de Deportados e Internados Políticos), which campaigned for the release of both political prisoners in Franco’s Spain and anti-fascists who were deported to labor camps in the Soviet Union.