On this day, 4 July 1913, Black Spanish Civil War fighter, concentration camp survivor and electrician Carlos Greykey was born to parents from the then-Spanish colony of Equatorial Guinea. His birth name was José Carlos Gray Molay, and he later was given the warrior name "Greykey". His parents moved to Barcelona, and his mother worked as a cleaner, and despite his poor working class background, Greykey was able to attend medical school.
His studies were disrupted by the right-wing military coup of general Francisco Franco, and he soon volunteered to fight in the civil war on the Republican side. With Franco's victory, Greykey was forced into exile in France, like tens of thousands of other Republicans. And like many other Spanish refugees, he later joined the French resistance to Nazi occupation.
He was eventually captured by the Nazis on the Rhine front and sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp. There, he was assigned the red triangle of political prisoners. Greykey's language skills, which included the ability to speak English, French, German, Spanish and Catalan, as well as the curiosity of the Nazis, led to him being appointed as a personal assistant to senior German officers. The Nazis then dressed Greykey in an old Yugoslav army uniform to give him the appearance of a bellhop.
Greykey remained close with his fellow Spanish detainees, and with them took part in a rebellion in the camp shortly before its liberation by US troops. Upon his release, Greykey was unable to return to Spain, as the Franco regime was still in power. So he returned to France, living in Paris and working as an electrician.
In his later years, Greykey again became active in opposing the brutal dictatorship in Equatorial Guinea of Francisco Macías Nguema, a former official under Spanish colonial rule. He remained a supporter of the establishment of democracy in the country until his death in 1982.
Learn more about the Spanish civil war in our podcast episodes 39-40: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e39-the-spanish-civil-war-an-introduction/
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