María García Torrecillas

María García Torrecillas (16 May 1916 – 3 February 2014) was a Spanish assistant nurse and mid-wife who assisted in the delivery of around 300 babies while in exile in Vichy France as a result of the Spanish Civil War.

Part of a generation of young people from Almeria seeking better opportunities in Catalonia, García and her sister moved to Barcelona to join their older brother. Initially working in a yarn factory, the events of July 1936 led her to working for a Republican munitions factory and volunteering at a hospital run by International Red Aid.. The fall of Barcelona in January 1939 made García part of the first large wave of people to flee the city towards the French border.

Once arriving at the Argelès-sur-Mer concentration camp in France, García found herself pregnant in a situation where it was very difficult to give birth. With the Swiss Aid Association running the Elna Ward, García was helped with her pregnancy by Swiss nurse Elisabeth Eidenbenz. Eidenbenz inspired García to take up the same profession, and she would go on to assist over 300 women give birth in the camps. She would also assist Jewish and Polish women fleeing Nazi persecution in Vichy France by forging papers and changing names so they could more easily hide in the Spanish Republican refugee population.

In 1943, García left on a Portuguese flagged ship, Serpapinto, full of Spanish refugees for Mexico to find the father of her son. After connecting with him and realizing the relationship would not work, García set about making her own way. This included going back into nursing to help other Spanish Civil War refugee women with their pregnancies, before eventually going back into the textile industry. She then settled into the quiet life. After Mexico City was hit by a devastating earthquake in 1985, García and her husband moved to Monterrey to be close to her son. She published her memoirs, Mi Exilio, at the age of 80. Starting in 2005, while in her late 80s, García would make her visits back to Spain. The first time was for a ceremony to honor Eidenbenz. The time in 2007 was to receive an award on the Andalusia Day from the Junta de Andalucía for her work in helping Spanish women during the Civil War. García died on 3 February 2014 in Monterrey at the age of 97.