白求恩的西班牙秘密档案——性格与恋情
一九三七年初，正当西班牙内战在被围困的马德里城展开，附近街道炮声隆隆的时候，一位美艳惊人的女士走进西班牙—加拿大输血队总部，要求同主任——加拿大医生诺尔曼·白求恩——谈谈。这位女士自称名叫卡莎，是瑞典记者。她身材瘦削，面庞小巧，留着透红的金色长发，人前一立，身高近六英尺，俯视着她要采访的这位医生。然而两人心有灵犀，随即双双消失，在一间卧室中共度两日。其间白求恩的年轻助手特德·阿伦曾经撞见两位裸裎床笫；白求恩间或出门露一面，对人说该记者正在做深入访谈。
卡莎在输血队逗留了数周，也或许是数月。但她并不是当时唯一一位采访白求恩的记者。白大夫曾向许多记者求欢，闹得声望日隆。加拿大人在国内报刊上读到他的业绩，为之陶醉。这是他们的同胞，一个浪漫的淘气鬼，在被围攻的马德里城奔波送血，当其时，法西斯敌人轰击着各个城门，而只用猎枪和自制燃烧瓶（所谓“莫罗托夫鸡尾酒”）
武装起来的平民百姓却能把他们挡在城外。送血汽车上赫然标着带有“加拿大”的字样。加拿大人从未见过这么惹眼的激情，他们喜欢。解囊相助者数以万计。
但是，一九三七年四月初，白求恩突然离开了西班牙。两年以后，他因血液中毒，在中国死去。当时他效力于毛泽东的共产党八路军，该军在同入侵中国的日军作战。这位加拿大医生在中国成了举国尽知的英雄，又过了多年，才在加拿大成为同样的人物。中学大学都曾以白求恩的名字命名。去年，加拿大广播公司ＣＢＣ在观众中征选历来最伟大的加拿大人，白求恩名列第二十六位（译注：在百名入选者当中）。
白求恩有其国际形像。然而在西班牙，他初次扬名于国际的地方，他的行藏细节却始终蔽于一团迷雾。具体地说，他为何离开西班牙？这个被他称为“世界的中心”的国家，当时正处于最黑暗的时刻，马德里被法西斯军队包围，内战前途悬而未卜。
今天，本刊终于揭开了这个答案。这个藏了六十多年的迷，就锁在苏维埃共产国际的秘密档案里：当年，不是诺尔曼·白求恩选择了离开西班牙；他是被当时的西班牙政府官员强迫而离去。他们指控他为叛逆和间谍，并且是和另一个叛徒及法西斯嫌疑份子——即那位瑞典金发记者和舞蹈家，亦即他的恋人——相互勾结。
一九三六年，一位名叫弗朗哥的西班牙将军在纳粹德国和法西斯意大利的强力支持下，对民主选举的左倾政府发起了军事叛变。当年七月，叛乱起于西属摩洛哥，随后扩及西班牙本土。但是，全国大部分地区的人民都起而反抗。他们有的设立路障，有的开着出租汽车冲击军队的机枪阵地，使得军事政变一时被遏制，西班牙随即陷入内战。
在千千万万正在经济萧条的岁月里熬煎的加拿大人眼里，西班牙成了一线亮光。法西斯主义在世界各处肆虐横行，西方各民主国家对此无所作为，毫不制止。本尼托 ·莫索里尼进军北非的阿比西尼亚，无人阻挡。阿道夫·希特勒在德国兜捕囚禁犹太人，英、美、法诸国只会一味姑息。但是，西班牙的工人、农民、自由派、民主派、无政府主义者和共产党人终于昭示了自己的立场。结果，大约有四万名来自各国的志愿者，其中包括一千六百名加拿大人，一起涌向西班牙，为支持西班牙政府而战。
赴西作战的加拿大人中，多数来自遭受大萧条打击最重的阶层。其中几乎全是穷人，而且约百分之八十是移民。那时节，他们坐在摇摇晃晃的货车顶上在加国各地奔波，到救济营、筑路队和农场找工作，住宿就在流浪者营地或者城区的破旧旅店。到西班牙去打仗，对这些加拿大人既是一条出路，也是个重振生活的机会。
诺尔曼·白求恩却不同于这些加拿大人。
他出身于富裕家庭。到一九三六年，他已经成为著名的胸外科医生，在蒙特利尔社交界头面翩翩，尽管他同时又是铁杆左派，是个书斋共产党人。可是，白求恩在加拿大备感压抑和沮丧。一位原住伦敦、后在西班牙与白求恩密切合作过的加拿大建筑师黑森·赛斯说过，战前，白求恩“非常暴躁，愤世嫉俗，因为这个社会对受苦受难的人无动于衷，而他相信这些苦难是可以通过政治经济手段连根铲除的”。
眼见病人康复出院，而后只因穷困生活的折磨再度患病，白求恩感到愤怒。他相信西班牙人民在为将要改变这一切的社会而战。他急于投身其中，他呼吁朋友们出钱，又自报奋勇为红十字会工作，均告不果。最后，白求恩从“西班牙民主救援会”得到资助。该会是个集资和议会游说组织，由“英联邦国家合作联盟” （ＣＣＦ）和加拿大共产党的成员管理。格雷厄姆·斯普莱是ＣＣＦ的领导成员，也是白求恩在救援会的关系。
白求恩从魁北克城登船出发，到达马德里那天是一九三八年十一月三日，正当弗朗哥要攻打这座都城的前夜。前来接他的人叫海宁 ·索仁森，是一位出生于丹麦的加拿大人。索仁森是作为报纸记者被派到西班牙的，他答应斯普莱到马德里去调查共和国在医疗方面的需求。索仁森是左派，他精力充沛，静不下来，总要寻求新知和新刺激。多年以后，他回忆说，“也许我就是好冒险，也许我就是老嫌没劲，要找点儿刺激。我又不是耶稣基督。”
索仁森说好要带白求恩转转马德里。这两人花了好几天，巡访各种医院，想看看白求恩能不能参加进去。但是，那些医生一概不置可否，最多是些模棱两可的应承，多数都叫他以后再来。其间有一次，在一个军事基地，人家给白求恩提出了一个职位，可是最后他说不喜欢那个负责人。他对索仁森说：“我可不能跟那个混蛋一块儿干。咱们走！”
可能的情况是：在全城受到围攻的混乱当中，白求恩根本不可能找到一所医院和医疗机构，让他施展医术。但也有可能是他想找到一种较为显赫的工作，更有可能扬名。当年在西班牙认识白求恩的人，都形容他是刚烈自负，精力充沛，耐心不足。索仁森回忆说白求恩有次埋怨他：“你介绍我时没把我说得有多么重要。”
白求恩终于找到了一个目标。那是在他和索仁森乘火车前往瓦伦西亚的途中，两人对坐，当中隔着个小桌。伴着轧轧车声，看着大地上的葡萄园和橄榄树，白忽然一拍桌子：“海宁，有了！”他描绘了一种输血设施，能把血浆送达前线将士。以前，需要输血的伤员得等上几个小时或者几天，才能登上崎岖的道路，被送往远离前线的医院，经常在途中失血死去。
从西班牙官员和资助他们两人的“西班牙民主救援会”那里，他们很快就得到了批准。随后，赛斯也参加进来，他们在马德里成立了总部，随即开始把急需的血浆送往已被打烂的城市及其周围战地各处的战士和平民。为了尽量让工作有成效，白求恩还绘制了地图。
自战事爆发以来，西班牙政府原已相当重视输血工作，但白求恩敏锐地看到把血浆送到急需之处是何等重要。他的输血设施是机动的，对抢救生命来说，其意义不言自明。再则，在城市遭到围困之际，献血行动本身使马德里的公民有机会表示与守城将士精诚一致，这个输血设施也成了他们蔑视强暴的一种象征。
但是，在输血队总部，问题很快就出现了。在蒙特利尔就认识白求恩的特德·阿伦在一九三七年初到达该输血队时，发现这位医生正开始故态复萌。白求恩告诉老朋友说，跟他共事的有几个懒惰的机会主义份子或甚至是亲弗朗哥份子，跟他们打交道，他就得靠喝苏格兰威士忌。“有时候我喜欢他，因为他确实了不起；有时候我又恨他，因为他够不上我理想中的英雄。”多年后阿伦写道，“我还记得那天晚上，他又被那位一直跟他找麻烦的大夫惹恼了，连喝四杯威士忌，醉了就一拳击碎前门上的窗户。”
到一九三七年三月，问题加剧了。当时西班牙共和国政府对在内战开初数月的乱局中自发兴起的若干专门组织实行了整顿，收回管理权限。其中包括加拿大输血队。政府施行的管理和官僚制度不合白求恩的口味，也限制了他的权威。对此，白求恩起初退让了一下。他离开输血队，几天以后带了些高级军官卷土重来。他看不起政府权威。他照样酗酒。尽管如此，四位曾经在西班牙和白求恩共过事的医生回首当年，仍然对他表示崇敬。他勇敢得近乎鲁莽。他对反法西斯事业的坚定立场不容侮辱。
一九三七年四月十九日，白求恩给军队卫生部门的首脑写了一封辞职信，信上说，输血队在西班牙当局管理下工作正常，不再需要他了，所以他将离去。“我于一月间设想成立的西—加输血队，如今作为军队卫生部门的从属机构管理得很好，能够有效运行，有鉴于此，我在西班牙领导这个组织的职能显已自然终结。”信里就是这样说的。
多年来许多人表示怀疑对当时事件的这种说法。白求恩竟然会在战事仍在身边进行时选择离开西班牙，这很难令人置信。但冷战把白求恩离去的真相封蔽了数十年。
苏联——通过共产国际和世界各国的共产党——组织和资助了国际志愿者去西班牙参战，尽管许多志愿者并非共产党人。通过西班牙政府中的西共成员，莫斯科对该政府施加了巨大的影响。白求恩的输血队里也有共产党的成分，就连白大夫本人也是共产党员。
当战争结束时，数十万件有关赴西班牙（参战）的外国人的文件，包括关于白求恩的档案，被悄悄送往莫斯科，在那里一锁五十余年，使西方学者无从查阅。现在这些档案已经公开。档案中存有黑森 ·赛斯和海宁·索仁森的日记，这些日记披露了真相，说明了白求恩怎样告别了这个他本不想离开的国家，怎样告别了他本想为之奋斗到底的战争。
白求恩和西班牙当局之间产生过严重问题的迹象，首先呈现在赛斯的日记和索仁森的私人文件里。赛斯在一九三七年四月十六日的日记中写着：“到底让白同意走了。”索仁森回忆录对当天有类似的记述：“我们说服了白离开。”而白求恩确实就在几周以后离开了西班牙。可他还是愿意回去。当年五月，他试图回去建立一间孤儿院，为西班牙当局和他的加拿大同事所制止。到七月间，白求恩下定决心迫切要求重返，竟打算以四十七岁的年龄报名参加战斗部队“国际旅”。
可是，西班牙政府中的共产党当局就是不肯让白求恩回去。一个名叫胡安·艾尔琛塔勒的西班牙官员在其写给上级的报告中解释了为何必须不惜一切代价不让白求恩进入这个国家。这个信件的内容以前从未披露过。艾尔琛塔勒写道，在白本人的加拿大同事配合之下，
白终于被“巧妙地”赶走了，如此则不会影响来自成千上万加拿大人的捐款，他们捐钱本来是为支持白的输血队。
接着，艾尔琛塔勒列举了白求恩的所谓罪行：“出于行为不端，和其他原因，他经常酗酒，其身心状况一向都不适于领导象输血那样细致的工作。“他曾拿走一些首饰，借口说是要交给某某，后来又说他要到巴黎去把它卖掉，好为本队筹资，其实至今谁也不知道他拿那些东西干了什么。
“他洋洋得意大手大脚地花钱，从来不想想钱是加拿大无产阶级为了表示同西班牙的团结，常常是一分一分筹集来的。
“我们一向注意到他对上前线有极大热情，无论何时，只要有战斗任务；但从来不是为了输血的正当目的。”
然后，艾尔琛塔勒摆出对白求恩的最严峻指控：“根据一份已送交我党中央委员会和军事卫生部的报告，白求恩有重大间谍嫌疑。”艾尔琛塔勒在报告结尾注明，白求恩常接受一位他呼之为“塔莎”的可疑女子的采访。其实，那就是卡莎，白求恩的瑞典恋人。
卡莎的名字也出现在另一份文献里，这是由历史学家拉里·汉南首先发现的。一个未具名的西班牙官员暗示说，卡莎可能是间谍，因为她有几次未经批准就跑到前线上去，在那儿还收集过类似军用地图的详图资料——这位官员对白求恩也做过同样指控。报告的作者还暗示：卡莎不大检点。
这使人禁不住猜想：或许这位西班牙官员只是对那个瑞典女人毫无拘检的作派和公然卖弄风情大感震惊，因而觉得有理由猜测她可能是间谍。但另一份报告看起来更其不祥，这份报告保存在“军事情报处”——一个令人生畏的机构，该机构实际上对苏联负责，它执行过许多秘密逮捕，并且暗杀过政治上“可疑的”人士。报告列出她的全名是卡莎·赫琳·罗斯曼，并说她在瑞典时曾作过歌剧院主演，当过家庭教师，而当时是个“托派”——在该西班牙秘密机构眼中，这和叛徒是同义语。要是对她到底忠于谁还有任何疑问的话，这份秘密警察文件记录着，她“和瓦伦西亚与巴塞罗那的法西斯团伙有牵连”。
事实上，卡莎·罗斯曼既不是间谍，也没有作过家庭教师；她是位艺人，是个舞蹈家。她曾经在欧洲巡回演出，直到她的经理人卷款潜逃，害得她一文不名。战事爆发时，她在西班牙当旅游经纪，后来转行作记者。可是当时人不管这些。西班牙当局认为她可能是叛徒。而当他们得知白求恩和这个瑞典美女有染时，疑云也就降临到白的身上。
这位加拿大医生本来就被视为政治上可疑，原因包括他绘制过地图，他酗酒，而最有可能的原因是他爱发脾气。和卡莎的关系最终注定了他的命运。
加于白求恩的这项最厉害的指控，其实完全是无稽之谈。怀疑他是间谍所依据的逻辑委实禁不住一驳：说他绘制了前线的详图，并仔细注明各地距离和往返所需时间。可是白求恩的工作就是要把血浆及时送到前方，他当然需要有详细的地图，那正是抢救生命之所系。再说，他的情人卡莎·罗斯曼也不是法西斯份子。当弗朗哥的军队赢得战争时，她并没有留下迎接他们，而是和成千上万惧怕弗朗哥报复的西班牙人一起逃离了那个国家。她在墨西哥找到栖身之所，直到三十年后在那里去世。
至于白求恩，他挚爱西班牙，深深地关切它的反弗朗哥斗争。结果，他却成了在那场内战中席卷该国的反间谍妄想狂的牺牲品。他刚烈、自负、也许还是个酒鬼。但他的真正罪过却只是太执着于如何尽快把血浆送达伤员，再有就是爱上了一位异国女子。
白求恩的同事很可能并不知道西班牙当局怀疑他是间谍。但他们却明白，这位医生不得不离开西班牙。他独立不羁、激情洋溢、蔑视权威——这些个性曾让他在围城马德里的大乱之中闹到精彩纷呈，但当他成为更大的军事官僚机器上的一个齿轮时，这些个性却也弄得他麻烦不断。
和他们的西班牙东道主一样，白求恩的同事毕竟也认识到：他们无法公开赶走白求恩而不损及加拿大捐款。如艾尔琛塔勒所说，他们精明地合谋，“巧妙地”把白求恩遣离西班牙，几乎没有做什么批评报导，
也未透露他必须离去的真正原因。关于白求恩离去的全部情况一直被隐藏了六十多年，白求恩本人对针对他的这场密谋也一无所知，这表明那些人干得多么成功。
西班牙使白求恩心力交瘁，万念俱灰。在写给前妻的信中，他称这个国家是“我心上的创伤”。显然，这个伤口始终没有平复。白求恩曾两次试图重返，两次都没办到。
不过，西班牙内战也加深了白求恩对法西斯几乎是私仇般的憎恨。离开西班牙后六个月，当他准备赴华时，白求恩给从前的爱人 “伊丽莎白”写了一封诀别信。看来他在精神上准备着执行最后的、可能是一去不还的使命。他写道，“我面前的路陌生而又危险。你不能跟我走。在我的生活—— 和我的余生——当中，我不想再尝试任何认真的恋情。这类事对我来说已经完结。现在你尽可以亲切甜蜜地想念我。就这样想吧。我爱过你。我对你的情义仍然深重绵长。记着我，就象我会记着你——带着平和与珍视。”
Sex, spies and Bethune’s secret
She was a dancer — tall, Swedish and beautiful — and she was the real reason Bethune had to get out of Spain
MICHAEL PETROU | Oct 19, 2005
Early in 1937, as the Spanish Civil War raged around the besieged city of Madrid and explosions rumbled in nearby streets, a stunningly beautiful woman walked into the headquarters of the Spanish-Canadian Blood Transfusion Unit and asked to speak with its director: Canadian doctor Norman Bethune. The woman said her name was Kajsa and claimed to be a Swedish journalist. She was thin, with a small face and long, strawberry-blond hair. She stood nearly six feet tall and towered over the doctor she had come to interview. But the two felt a connection and disappeared into a bedroom for two days. Bethune’s young assistant, Ted Allan, stumbled upon the pair naked in bed. Occasionally, Bethune emerged to make his rounds. He said the journalist was conducting an in-depth interview.
Kajsa stayed at the blood transfusion unit for weeks, perhaps months. But she was not the only journalist to visit Bethune. The doctor courted many reporters, and his fame grew. Canadians, reading about his exploits in their own newspapers, were entranced. Here was one of their own, a romantic rogue who ferried blood throughout the assaulted city of Madrid, where the fascist enemy pounded at the gates and civilian soldiers armed with hunting rifles and Molotov cocktails kept them out. The vehicles delivering blood were emblazoned with the name “Canada.” Canadians at home had never seen such overt fervour before, and they liked it. Thousands sent money.
But Bethune left Spain abruptly in early April, 1937. Two years later, he died in China of blood poisoning, serving with Mao Zedong’s Communist Eighth Route Army, which was fighting the Japanese who had invaded their country. The Canadian doctor became a national hero in China and, much later, in Canada as well. Schools and colleges are named after Bethune. Last year, CBC viewers voted him the 26th greatest Canadian of all time.
Despite Bethune’s global profile, the details of his time in Spain, where he first became internationally famous, remain shrouded in mystery. Specifically, why did he leave Spain, a country he once called “the centre of the world,” in its darkest hour, with Madrid surrounded by fascist troops and the outcome of the civil war still undecided?
Today, Maclean’s can reveal the answer to a mystery that has been hidden for more than 60 years, locked up in the secret archives of the Soviet Communist International: Norman Bethune did not choose to leave Spain. He was forced out by officials in the Spanish government who accused him of treachery and espionage, and of consorting with a traitor and suspected fascist — the Swedish blond journalist and dancer who was his lover.
In 1936, a Spanish general named Francisco Franco, backed by the armed might of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, led a military rebellion against Spain’s democratically elected, left-leaning government. The revolt began that July in Spanish Morocco and spread across mainland Spain. But in much of the country the people resisted. They threw up barricades and crashed speeding taxis into army machine-gun nests. They halted the coup d’état, and Spain was plunged into civil war.
For thousands of Canadians suffering through years of economic depression, Spain became a beacon. Fascism was advancing around the world, and the Western democracies were doing nothing to stop it. Benito Mussolini marched unopposed into Abyssinia in North Africa. Adolf Hitler was railing against Jews in Germany. Britain, the United States and France sought only to appease them. But in Spain — finally — workers, farmers, liberals, democrats, anarchists and Communists had made a stand. Eventually, some 40,000 volunteers from all over world, including 1,600 Canadians, flocked to Spain to fight for the Spanish government.
Most Canadians in Spain came from the ranks of those hit hardest by the Great Depression. Some 80 per cent were immigrants to Canada. Almost all were poor. They had spent years riding across the country atop swaying boxcars in search of work in relief camps and on road crews and farms, sleeping in hobo jungles and urban flophouses. Fighting in Spain offered these Canadians both a way out and a chance to fight back.
Norman Bethune was different.
He came from a wealthy family. By 1936, he was already a renowned thoracic surgeon and something of dandy on the Montreal social scene, even though he was both a committed leftist and a closet Communist. But Bethune was stifled and frustrated in Canada. Hazen Sise, a Canadian architect who had been living in London and who worked closely with Bethune in Spain, said that prior to the war, Bethune was “a man with a load of impatience, an angry man contemptuous of a society that seemed indifferent to suffering that he believed could be eradicated by political and economic means.”
Bethune was enraged to see his patients leave the hospital healthy, only to fall ill again because of the grinding poverty in which they lived. He believed that in Spain people were fighting for a society where this would change. Desperate to get there, he appealed to friends for money and he offered his services to the Red Cross, without success. Eventually, Bethune got money from the Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy, a fundraising and lobby group run by members of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and the Communist Party of Canada. Graham Spry, a leading member of the CCF, was his contact at the committee.
Bethune sailed from Quebec City and arrived in Madrid on Nov. 3, 1936 — the eve of Franco’s offensive against the Spanish capital. Waiting for the doctor was Henning Sorensen, a Danish-born Canadian who had gone to Spain as a newspaper correspondent and had promised Spry he would research the republic’s medical needs while he was in Madrid. Sorensen was a leftist, but he was also a perpetually restless type, always seeking out new things to learn and experience. “Maybe I was an adventurer,” he said many years later. “Maybe I was bored, needed some excitement. I was not Jesus Christ.”
Sorensen had agreed to show Bethune around Madrid. For the next few days, the two visited various hospitals to find out if Bethune could join their staff. None of the doctors could give Bethune more than vague commitments, and most told him to come back later. At one point, Bethune was offered a job at a military base, but he decided he didn’t like the man in charge. “I couldn’t work with that bastard,” he told Sorensen. “Let’s get out of here.”
It is possible that in the chaos of a city under attack, Bethune was simply unable to find a hospital or medical service that could make use of his skills. But it is also likely that he wanted an assignment with a higher profile and more potential for fame. All those who knew Bethune in Spain describe him as passionate and vain, with tremendous energy and little patience. Sorensen recalls Bethune complaining: “You don’t give me enough importance when you introduce me.”
Bethune eventually found his purpose while sitting across a small table from Sorensen as the pair travelled by rail to Valencia. “Henning, I’ve got it!” he said, slapping the table with his hand as the train creaked and rolled across a landscape covered with grape vines and olive trees. Bethune described a blood transfusion service that would bring blood to soldiers at the front. Previously, wounded soldiers needing blood would wait for hours or days, until they could be transported over broken roads to hospitals far behind the lines. Often they would bleed to death on the way.
The pair quickly got approval from Spanish officials and from the Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy, which was funding their mission. Then, joined by Sise, they established their headquarters in Madrid and began supplying desperately needed blood to soldiers and civilians in the war-torn city and surrounding battlegrounds. Bethune even made maps so the work could be done as efficiently as possible.
The Spanish government had already made remarkable advances in blood transfusion work since the outbreak of the conflict. But Bethune crucially perceived the value of bringing blood where it was needed. His blood transfusion unit was mobile, which made all the difference in saving lives. And in a city under siege, the very act of donating blood gave Madrid’s citizens an opportunity to show their solidarity with the soldiers protecting them. The blood transfusion unit became a symbol of their defiance.
But problems soon developed at the unit’s headquarters. Ted Allan, who first knew Bethune in Montreal, says that when he arrived at the unit early in 1937, the doctor was beginning to unravel. Bethune told his old friend that a couple of lazy opportunists or even Franco sympathizers were working with him — and that he had resorted to Scotch whisky as a means of dealing with them. “There were times I had loved him because he had been truly magnificent. There were times I hated him because he hadn’t measured up to my ideal hero,” Allan wrote years later. “I also remembered the night when Bethune, infuriated by the doctor with whom he’d had all the problems, gulped four straight whiskies, got drunk and smashed his fist through the front-door window.”
Problems intensified in March 1937, as the Spanish Republican government reorganized and took control of the many ad hoc groups that had hitherto flourished in the chaos of the war’s early months, including the Canadian blood transfusion unit. Bethune recoiled from the government-imposed control and bureaucracy, which cramped his style and autonomy. He left the unit for days at a time. He fought with top military brass. He sneered at authority. He drank. Despite all this, four of the doctors who worked with him in Spain later remembered Bethune with great respect. He was brave to the point of reckless. And his conviction about the anti-fascist cause was beyond reproach.
But on April 19, 1937, Bethune wrote a letter of resignation to the chief of military health, in which he said he was leaving because the blood transfusion unit was now functioning well under Spanish control, and he was no longer needed. “In view of the fact that the Instituto Hispano-Canadiense de Transfusion de Sangre as conceived by me in January is now operating as an efficient, well-organized institute, and as part of the Sanidad Militar, it is clear to me that my function as chief of the organization here in Spain has come to a natural end,” the letter said.
Over the years many have questioned this version of events. It made little sense that Bethune would choose to leave Spain with war still raging around him. But the truth about Bethune’s departure was concealed for decades by the Cold War.
The Soviet Union, through the Communist International and national Communist parties around the world, organized and funded the international volunteers who fought in Spain — even though many of the volunteers were not Communists themselves. Moscow also exercised enormous influence over the Spanish government, through members who belonged to the Communist Party of Spain. Bethune’s blood transfusion unit contained a Communist cell, and the doctor himself was a member of the party.
When the war ended, hundreds of thousands of documents pertaining to foreigners in Spain, including files on Bethune, were spirited away to Moscow, where they remained locked and hidden from Western scholars for more than 50 years. These archives have now been opened. Together with the archived diaries of Hazen Sise and Henning Sorensen, they reveal the true story of Norman Bethune’s departure from a country he didn’t want to leave, and a war he would have died fighting.
The first hints of serious trouble between Bethune and Spanish authorities emerge in the diaries of Sise and the personal papers of Sorensen. On April 6, 1937, Sise wrote in his diary: “Got Beth to agree to get out.” A similar day-by-day recollection by Sorensen confirms that on the same date, “We persuaded Beth to leave.” Bethune did leave Spain a few weeks later. But he wanted to come back. In May, he tried to return to establish a home for orphans, but he was stopped by Spanish authorities and his Canadian co-workers. By July, Bethune was so determined and desperate to return that he planned to join the International Brigades, a fighting unit, at the advanced age of 47.
But Communist authorities in the Spanish government did not want Bethune to come back.
A Spanish official named Juan Alcientara wrote to his superiors and explained why Bethune must be kept out of the country at all costs. The contents of this letter have never before been published. Alcientara wrote that Bethune had been expelled from Spain “in a clever way,” with co-operation from his Canadian co-workers, so as not to jeopardize funding from thousands of Canadians who were sending money to support Bethune’s transfusion unit.
Alcientara then listed Bethune’s alleged crimes:
“For being immoral, among other things, he frequently got drunk and was never in a condition to lead a mission as delicate as blood transfusion.
“He took jewellery under the pretext that he was going to hand them over . . . and then said he would sell it in Paris to raise funds for the Institute, without anyone knowing to date what he did with those objects.
“He happily squandered money without thinking that it came from the solidarity that the Canadian proletariat was showing to Spain and that in many cases this involved collecting cent by cent.
“We always observed his great interest in going to the Front whenever there were operations; but never with the good purpose of making transfusions.”
Here Alcientara levels his most damning accusation against Bethune:
“There is much suspicion that Bethune may be a spy according to a report that is already in the Central Committee of our Party and in the Headquarters of Military Health,” he writes. Alcientara finishes his report by noting that Bethune had frequent visits with a “suspicious” woman he identifies as “Tajsa,” but was, in fact, Kajsa, Bethune’s Swedish lover.
Kajsa’s name appears on another document, first uncovered by historian Larry Hannant. An unnamed Spanish official suggested Kajsa might be a spy because she made unauthorized trips to the front lines, where she gathered material for detailed military-style maps — an accusation he made against Bethune as well. The report’s author also implied Kajsa had loose morals.
It is tempting to think that this Spanish official might have been simply taken aback by the Swedish woman’s brazen confidence and overt sexuality, and consequently felt justified suggesting she might be a spy. But a report on Kajsa appears more ominously in a file kept by the Servicio de Investigacion Militar, the feared Spanish secret police who ultimately answered to the Soviets and who carried out numerous clandestine arrests and murders of politically “suspicious” individuals. She was identified by the full name of Kajsa Helin Rothman and was described as a former opera diva, a former governess in Sweden and now a “Trotskyist” — a label synonymous with being a traitor in the eyes of the Spanish security services. In case any doubt about her loyalty remained, her secret police file noted that she “had relations with fascist circles in Valencia and Barcelona.”
Kajsa Rothman was, in fact, neither a spy nor a governess, but an entertainer and dancer who toured Europe before her manager ran off and left her penniless. She was working in Spain as a travel agent when the war broke out, and subsequently turned to journalism. But none of this mattered at the time. Spanish authorities viewed her as a possible traitor. And their knowledge of Bethune’s intimate relations with the beautiful Swede would have cast the same dark cloud of suspicion on himself.
The Canadian doctor was already politically suspect because of his maps, his drinking and, most likely, his temper. Bethune’s relations with Kajsa sealed his fate.
The most serious allegations made against Bethune, however, are rubbish. He is accused of spying, based on the flimsy logic that he made detailed maps of the front lines, taking careful note of distances and travel times. But Bethune’s job was to get blood to the front as quickly as possible — of course he wanted detailed maps. Lives depended on it. And his lover, Kajsa Rothman, was not a secret fascist. When Franco’s forces won the war, she did not welcome them but fled the country with hundreds of thousands of Spaniards who feared Franco’s reprisals. She found refuge in Mexico and died there 30 years later.
As for Bethune, he loved Spain and cared deeply for its fight against Franco. But in the end he was a victim of the anti-spy paranoia that swept the country in the midst of its civil war. He was passionate, vain, and possibly a drunk. But his only crimes were obsessing over how to get blood to dying soldiers as quickly as possible, and falling for a beautiful and exotic woman.
It is unlikely Bethune’s co-workers knew Spanish authorities suspected he was a spy. But they understood the doctor had to leave Spain. His headstrong independence, passion, and contempt for authority — the very personality traits that allowed him to flourish in the chaos of Madrid under siege — caused Bethune to flounder when he became a cog in a much larger military bureaucracy.
Along with their Spanish hosts, Bethune’s co-workers nonetheless realized they could not outright expel Bethune without risking losing funding from Canada. They shrewdly conspired to remove Bethune from Spain “in a clever way,” as Alcientara said, with a minimal amount of negative publicity and without revealing the real reasons he had to go. That the circumstances of his departure remained hidden for more than 60 years, and that Bethune himself was ignorant of the machinations against him, indicates how successful they were.
Spain left Bethune drained and emotionally crushed. In a letter to his ex-wife, he called the country “a scar on my heart.” Clearly it was a scar that never healed. Bethune tried twice to come back — and failed both times.
But the Spanish Civil War also intensified Bethune’s almost personal vendetta against fascism. Six months after leaving Spain, as he prepared to leave for China, Bethune wrote a farewell letter to “Elizabeth,” a former lover. It seems he was mentally preparing himself for a final and possibly fatal mission. “My road ahead is a strange and dangerous one,” he wrote. “You cannot come with me. I don’t want to attempt in my time — and in my time left — any serious emotional engagement. I am through with such things. Now you can think about me kindly and sweetly. Do so. I loved you once. I have great affection for you now. Remember me as I will you — with quietness and respect.”
Michael Petrou is writing a doctoral thesis at the University of Oxford on Canadians in the Spanish Civil War
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