Carmen left her home country of Spain at age 21 in 1962 due to economic needs. She felt great pain leaving behind her family. Upon arriving in Switzerland, she was received politely but found living alone in a shelter difficult at first as she did not know the language. Over time, she adapted and found people treated her well as she treated them. After becoming ill and losing her job, nuns helped her find work in nursing homes until she secured a long-term job at a hospital. Through correspondence in a Spanish newspaper, she met her husband from Alicante and eventually returned to Spain with him, though she had wanted to stay in Switzerland. Now at age 81, Carmen is financially stable between pensions from both
2. - Name: Carmen Sanmartín, is a friend of my family
- - Age: Currently 81 years old.
- Date on which she left her country: October 30, 1962.
- Reasons that oblige her to leave her country: Economic needs.
Current Picture Old Picture
3. - What did you leave behind?
- · “I left very young, I was 21 years old and I left my father here, my brothers
who were all small and just that. I left my family ”.
- What feelings did you have when you leave your country?
· “The most painful thing in the world at that time, and that I lost to my
mother when I was little ”.
- How long have you been without contacting your family?
- · “At least one year ”.
4. - How was the reception at the country of destination?
- · “The reception was very good, the lady in the restaurant where I was going
to work was very polite, wonderful. He showed me the room where I had to
sleep, in a shelter, and there when they left and they left me alone that night
... I had a terrible time, but well little by little I got used to it. I did not know
the language but I learned it little by little”.
- What attitudes did you found in people?
- · “For me here, there and where I was, everyone it's good and as I treat
people the way they treat me, they treated me well too”.
5. - How did you make a living?
- · Well it turns out that being there gave me a paralysis in the face and I had
to operate. As I will arrive more than normal to heal I lost my job and my
room. When I recovered some nuns took me mountain to a nursing home during
the time that I can not find work there (4 months). There I helped you improve
the table, the recognition and care of children and children. The women gave
me a job as a nurse in a hospital where I stayed for about 6 years until I
found myself in another paralytic hospital where I stayed until I returned to
Spain ”.
Primer hospital donde trabajó Carmen
al llegar al Suiza
6. - What was said in the press?
- · “The press, as I still have not understood the language well the radio
did not listen to it, besides I did not have it, but the television I could buy a
little one and I saw the Italian television. From time to time I bought "El
Caso" to know what was happening in Spain and all this was before Franco.
It was also through the newspaper that I met my husband ”.
- Did you return to your country?
· “I really wanted to go back to my country
next month but as I knew what there was
In my country I had to endure ...
What I wanted was for my husband to find a
I work there and never comeback but as he doesn´t want Carmen with
her TV
we went back to Spain ”.
7. - What is your current situation?
- · “Very good, very good. What I want to have is health, I have many years and I have
passed a lot of things. I have my pay from Switzerland and I have the one from here,
therefore, economically, I'm fine, the only thing I have many years and I will not be
able to enjoy all the time I want ”.
· “My husband and I met by correspondence.
The newspaper that arrived in Switzerland I took it and read it all, what
It happened in Spain and the part in the newspaper where wrote the
boys who wanted correspondence with the girls. I wrote to him but you
do not believe that I wrote to him alone, I wrote to three boys . One was from
Logroño, another from Madrid and my husband who was from Alicante.
I thought that with what I was in the cold I did not want to go to Logroño with
the same climate, the boy of Madrid according to the letters and telephone
I did not like it, then. Well, the Alicante boy was mine. Since we had never
seen each other, We were meet in Barcelona halfway between the two. He
had a picture of me and I had one of he, that's how I met him for the first time”.
