Spaniard, 99, who fought with French to liberate Paris, dies of coronavirus
PARIS — Rafael Gomez Nieto, the last surviving member of a company of Spanish soldiers that fought with French forces in liberating Paris from Nazi occupation in 1944, has died of the new coronavirus, the French presidency said Thursday. He was 99.
The presidency said Mr. Gomez Nieto died in Strasbourg, a city in eastern France that he fought to liberate in November 1944. French media said Mr. Gomez Nieto died Tuesday.
While growing up in Spain, the soldier’s son was still a teenager when he fought in the Spanish Civil War, joining the Republican forces that battled the Nationalists led by Gen. Francisco Franco. More than 500,000 people died in the 1936-1939 conflict.
As Franco’s forces advanced, declaring victory on April 1, 1939, Mr. Gomez Nieto and his family joined the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Spanish refugees who fled over the Pyrenees to France, hoping to find safety, the French presidency said. But like many others, Mr. Gomez Nieto was locked up in one of the harsh and rudimentary internment camps that were hastily thrown together for refugees in the south of France.
Mr. Gomez Nieto later managed to join up with Free French troops in North Africa. He enlisted in 1943 and became part of “La Nueve,” a company that reunited veterans of the Spanish war. The company was part of French Gen. Leclerc’s famed 2nd Armored Division that fought in the Allied liberation of France and took Paris on Aug. 25, 1944.