by Heriberto Quiñones was the false name of the Moldovan communist Yefim Granowdiski
She was Picornell’s partner and they had a daughter, whom they called Red October.
He directed the massacre of the prison ship Atlante anchored in the port of Mahón
The selective progressive historical memory, which calls a martyr Aurora Picornellhe completely forgets to mention his partner’s history, Heriberto Quiñones Gonzálezshot in Madrid in 1942 and mastermind of one of the episodes of repression bloodiest of the Civil Warthe cold-blooded murder in November 1936 of more than 70 people prisoners of the Republican side on the ship Atlante, anchored in the Menorcan port of Mahón, in retaliation for the bombing carried out hours before by the Italian air force sent by Mussolini.
The PSOE of the Balearic Islands and the entire left by extension have these days converted Aurora Picornell, known as “The Passionflower” of Mallorca, an idol and all because of the controversial intervention of the president of the Parliament, Gabriel Le Sennelast Tuesday, at raccidentally omper your photo when it was displayed on the PSOE deputy’s computer, Mercedes Garridosecond vice president of the Autonomous Chamber.
The left constantly pays tribute to Picornell for his status as a victim of Francoism while Systematically ignores the people murdered by the Republican side. The repression of this faction was especially bloody in Menorca, where the actions of his partner, Heriberto Quiñones or, rather, Yefim Granodowsi, which was the real name of the Moldovan who entered Spain in December 1930 Posted by Josif Stalin to organize the Communist Party in Mallorca, Valencia and Asturias, a community in which he obtained a false birth certificate that credited him as a man from Gijón born in 1907 called Heriberto Quiñonez González.
Granodowski arrived in Mallorca in 1933 and there he met a young woman at the Molinar with whom he immediately established a romantic relationship. This was Aurora Picornell. The couple had a daughter whom they named Red October in homage to the Bolshevik revolution. The Franco regime “renamed” it Francisca. He would die quite young, leaving two daughters, Joana and as, dawn.
And who was Aurora Picornell? She was a prominent Spanish communist and feminist activist. Born in 1912 in El Molinar, the fishing neighborhood of Palma. From a very young age she was committed to feminism, the labor movement and unionism. Seamstress by profession She soon became an activist in the Spanish Communist Party, sharing concerns with her partner Heriberto Quiñonez.
With the outbreak of the Civil War, the secret agent sent by Staflin, who did not arrive in time to be part of the Captain Bayo’s expedition who tried unsuccessfully to conquer Mallorca for the Republican side because he was in Madrid, settled in Menorca, in September 1936, as leader of the PCE in the Balearic Islands. Menorca was the only Balearic island that was under red command. He didn’t waste any time. From the beginning he made it clear that his goal was going to be “cleanse the island of fascists”. For this he was always armed and accompanied by two bodyguards, according to the historian. David Ginardauthor of a biography of Aurora Picornell.
He is also a historian Manuel Aguilera He tells in an article that on November 18, 1936, a bombing by Italian fascist aircraft caused seven deaths in Maó. The people asked for revenge and assaulted the Atlante prison ship in the face of the passivity of the security guards. According to the historian Juan José Negreiravarious sources They point to Quiñones as the author of the list of people who had to be killed. They took 50 prisoners, most of them military, from their cells and murdered them on the spot. The next day, the episode was repeated and 23 more were killed.
Quiñones’ actions were condemned even by other anti-fascist forces. CNT, UGT and PSOE broke with him for his “barbaric procedures”. Only a month and a half after that Atlante massacre, on January 5, 1937, lThe Francoists murdered his wife, Aurora Picornell, along with four others ‘Rojas del Molinar’ in the Son Coletes cemetery, in Manacor.
Quiñonez survived the Civil War and in 1941 he was the shadow leader of the Communist Party of Spain. He tried to form an alliance with the entire left that remained underground, but in December he was captured and, after being tortured He was executed in October 1942 tied to a chair, since his back had been broken during interrogations. Shortly after being arrested he was expelled from the communist party under the accusation of being an undercover agent. This is where Yefim Granodowski’s story ended.
It should also be said about Aurora Picornell that she was also persecuted by the left, which has now elevated her to the category of heroine due to the tearing of her photo during the plenary session of the Parliament last Tuesday. In 1932 she was declared wanted and captured by the Second Republic, directed at that time by a socialist government, according to the Official Gazette of the province of the Balearic Islands published on October 6 of that year, and to which OKBALEARES has had access. Aurora Picornell was charged with “disobedience and insult to law enforcement officials” and municipal judge José Vidal Fiol urged the civil and military authorities to capture her and place her in the provincial prison.
The judge asked Aurora Picornell, who at that time was 22 years old and who was “whereabouts unknown” to “within ten days” appears before the Court with the aim of becoming a prisoner” under warning “of being declared a rebel and stopping the harm that may be caused by law.” According to the record, the judge issued said order on September 15, 1932.
After the coup d’état of ’35, Aurora Picornell She was arrested and imprisoned along with other communist colleagues. while he took refuge in the Casa del Poble in Palma. From there she was transferred to a women’s prison and, six months later, she was shot on Twelfth Night, 1937.
His remains were identified by the Balearic Government in 2022, after an exhumation from the Son Coletes cemetery, in Manacor. Next to his bodies, They also found the remains of Aurora’s father, Gabriel Picornell. Carpintero, a member of the Socialist Party and one of the promoters of the Communist Group in Palma in the 1920s, was also murdered in 1937.
