Before the pandemic we began to say we had to interview. The pandemic happened, but last year it was very serious, due to cardiac intervention… I had to change the mitral valve. For a start, I felt tired, a rapid breathing, another tachycardia. One day I had the echocardiography and then I was sent to the cardiovascular surgeon, preferably. The mitral
valve was almost gone. I remember when I was told that I had to have surgery, I asked if it was absolutely necessary, and the doctor said, "Operation, or kill." Ha, ha… That was at the end of May and I was finally operated on July 4.

You were concerned about how to make the funeral in case of death in the operating room. Yes, access to the operating room is always a
risk, and when it comes to heart issues, the risk is higher. When I was told I was going to operate from day to day, I worried. I told my kids that if I didn't survive the intervention, I wanted them to bury me in the family pantheon, with ikurrina on top of the coffin, and I also wanted Eusko gudariak to sing. That was my last wish, that I didn't want mass or cure in my months. I got very worried into the operating room, it's true, and when I woke up from the operation, that's the first thing I said, "I'm alive!" Ja, ja…

“I’m alive!”, ha, ha… But it was terrible. Intervention is enormous. Then I kept my defenses
low, spent several days in intensive care. Take medication and each other's discomfort, and this and that. It took a long time, but now I'm OK to do an interview! Ha, ha… But I'm not the same. I used to do several successive dances, seven jumps, for example, but now I can't. I get tired.

It was time! Basque music festivals, Korrika, Aberri Eguna, [Jokin] Artajo and [Alberto] Annual tribute to Asurmendi, manifas of one and the other… do not miss one! That's my life. I'm an Abertzale forever. Our grandfather was from Napartarra, the first Abertzale here. Nicolas Mangado Erze. The children were from the PNV, including our father, the PNV and a Vascophilous lover. I didn't know Euskera, just a
few words, but I did know Euskera. Our mother was Leringo, she didn't say much, but we know she always voted for us. What my husband was saying, and what we were saying all the children, six girls and one boy.

And what atmosphere was in the street of Pamplona at that time. He was born in 1947 -- if you talk about a political environment, I would say silence. Until the 1960s, mostly silence. I remember meeting at home to hear what foreign broadcasters were saying. Radio Pirenaica, BBC, Radio
Euskadi... Always at night. And some friends came to hear them. People were coming home, meeting with our father. We would be 14-15 years old, but at home we would see the movement. Juanito Olaetxea. My father told us that if someone asked us, we had to say they were Christian courses. They talked about politics, but inside the house.

On the street, silence, he said. Yeah, until the 1960s, I would say. It was the Real
Sociedad Bascongada de Amigos del País, and also the Basque classes, and I started on Pozoblanco Street. We learned some songs, you learn how to speak in Basque to the children... and some words: good morning, good night, wine... The teacher was Elena Gueresague. We were Basques and wanted to know Basque. The Real Sociedad Bascongada de Amigos del País had another section, the youth, Euzko Basterra, and there I entered towards 1967. We were doing cultural activities, going out to the mountains... and with that we were distributing propaganda.

What propaganda? TRUE. José Antonio
Urbiola and, among them, Mirentxu Loiarte, wife of Urviola, and Bixente Serrano of Itz, had a cyclostil and printed a newsletter. We also distributed the journal Euzkadi, and if there was a call we printed it and put it in the mailboxes for home mail collection. People also arrived from the Sakana to Pamplona, collected the propaganda and distributed it in Etxarri Aranatz and nearby towns. At that time I met a special person, who we had hidden at home. His pseudonym was Arantxa Arruti, a very thin militant, ideologically well-dressed, progressive… Another woman, progressive, was Mirentxu Loiarte.

He entered Euzko Basterra in 1967, when the prestigious Aberri Eguna was held in Pamplona. But I don’t know many things, but what one and another – father, brother, friends… – have said. I was working in a florist and the store was open every day. On the eve of that Aberri Eguna, I delivered flowers, and I saw a Carlist demonstration against Aberri Eguna. There with his red caps! When I got home there were a lot of people, 40 people who entered Pamplona from the day before knew that the controls were going to be
narrower and that they could not enter.

In 1968, Aberri Eguna in San Sebastian, also hard, and harsher the episode the following year, killed two people of his team, with the explosive
in his hands. 6 April, on the eve of the 1969 Aberri Eguna. Terrible! Jokin Artajo and Alberto Asurmendi die. They were from Euzko Basterra, from our group and from our friends, from EGI. I mean, I was distributing propaganda and at home we hid people. Otherwise, we didn't know who could walk around and around, putting flags, or explosives. When Artajo and Asurmendi died, we thought those of our group worked, but we had no certainties. Artajo and Asurmendi died and the Real Sociedad de Amigos expelled us.

Expel? Yes, because Euzko
Basterra is there. Estornes Lasa, Carlos Clavería, Jorge Sarasa, José Luis García Falces. They said they had to give the police the list of Euzko Basterra's partners. I wouldn't be surprised, knowing them. Many of them were arrested, Santi Sadaba, Aparicio, Xabier Armendariz... were subjected to military trial and imprisoned for years. The fact is, Euzko Basterra ran out of meeting, we held several meetings at the Olite bar, but we couldn't work as before. Moreover, when some of our group are imprisoned, worse. Some were captured after the death of Artajo and Asurmendi and others by the placement of the ikurrina in Urbasa.

He said they were from TRUTH, and Artajo and Asurmendi were also from TRUTH, but they had explosives… Yes. Some of us were of TRUTH, others of ETA, and there were also supporters of the two groups being united, of EGI-Batasuna. They say that things normally,
Artajo and Asurmendi would go to ETA, as many others had, but I say “after the future.” They were REAL, like us, but it's true that everyone could go to ETA, because the PNV didn't move. [Juan] Ajuriaguerra was the driver of EGI, and the whole person was Ajuriaguerra, strong, with a lot of vitality, many of the PNV were not like him. If Ajuriaguerra were to follow us, maybe EGIA would have survived, but the atmosphere was to do nothing, we were cut off. And in addition, we're increasingly being cared for by the police, there's no place to meet, friends in jail ...

In the end, in 1970, you also had to leave, along with your husband, Juan Mari Feliu. Always fleeing the police. They found propaganda in
our house, they also persecuted Juan Mari [Feliu], they had it detained before, and one day, when we were home, we saw the police car, the camouflaged car, but we knew it was police, because we knew the license plates. We called home down the street and Pello, his brother, yeah, there was the police and we hid. First they kept us from HOAC, Catholic Action, Iturrama and Villava. Then, with the help of the PNV, we were in Donostia, in the house of Idoia Estornés and José Antonio Aiestaran for several days. They left the house. Then Juan Mari [Feliu] passed to the other side, and I hid Gerardo Bujanda in his house.

Didn't he get to Iparralde? Yes, but later. In December, the time came for the Burgos
trial and the kidnapping of the German consul [Eugene] Bëihl. And the emergency situation! And as the police was always looking for Gerardo Bujanda, I was leaving there and after being hidden there and here, on January 6, the sisters Ziga – Lolo, Nati and Gurutze – took me across from Dantxarine. We do not go through customs, of course, but through a post-customs journey. Nati was an incapacitated man who led him to dismiss the civil guards if necessary. Lolo and Nati stayed in the car and Gurutze and I walked across. But before passing he also screamed, “Long live Euskadi liberated!” and said, “Wait until the border passes!” Kar, ha... On the other side, I waited for Juan Mari [Feliu], the ones from home..., and they took me to San Juan de Luz, where we live, along with several refugees at Txori-kanta house.

What memories do you have of exile? Of all. I made good relationships. Juan Mari continued at the PNV, not me. Knowing party people, I disagreed with them. In Hendaia I made a lot of relationship with Txillardegi and Jone Forcada, who lived next to him. There I did the first Basque course. There were also several ETA members. Argala, Txikia, Fangio, Pérez Arenaza... Many were killed! But Juan Mari was from the PNV, and that didn't help either. In 1974 we went on
a hunger strike in the Baiona cathedral against the French Government, which sought to expel ETA members. I also took part in the hunger strike for nineteen days. There they all belonged to ETA, except me, and once a Bakio girl told me that a Enrique said that I was the savior of the PNV.

That too? Yeah, that too. The truth is that there were a lot of people there, and among them came Joseba Elosegi, to encourage us, spoke with me, and the rumor, who was the savior of the PNV. In the assembly that night, when they were saying things like this, I asked for explanations: “I have a year
of daughter and I leave myself at home and am on hunger strike. What are you doing?” Nobody answered me. Then I said what I mean. Let people not go, because Monzón, to stay and to stay. I didn't, I couldn't stay there crying, I doubted him. And I fled the strike with hunger. But, for example, there was Cocoliso, a real infiltrated policeman. He led them to death in the ambush of Hondarribia, Poet [Xabier Roque Mendez] and Moriko [José Luis Mondragón]. Lies, tributes, atmosphere of mistrust...

Difficult times! Difficult and difficult. They have been or have been made to facilitate conciliation. I remember one day the lehendakari Jesus Maria Leizola did a rally or a session in San Juan de Luz, but it was an absolute failure, it was not a thing, it was clumsy -- there was no way to join. Then the
ETA itself was divided -- hard.

You came back and you made
a teacher's life in Pamplona and Navarra -- we came in 1977, after Amnesty's law. I started teaching Euskera in Pamplona, in the batzoki. I didn't know much, but I learned at the same time that I taught. And like me, with Oñatibia's method. Then I also taught in Elizondo, in an intensive summer course, and in the local school, in the first year, they started to learn Basque. I remember a fifth year Basque Euskaldun student told me, “Euskara, what for?” It was very Basque! “They have put Euskaphobia inside!” I thought.

For many years he worked in teaching, but he was also a parliamentarian in 2007 by Nafarroa Bai. And with satisfaction and honor. I was not a fan of the Navarre Parliament, but on
the first day of it I found it exciting with the accession to the Navarre hymn. Otherwise, the parliamentarian is a very difficult task – I was in the hospital three times – and, on the other hand, the bigger and more difficult jobs our “revolutionaries” entrusted to women. I, for example, worked in Education, Health and Social Services, and we didn't have any breaks, workshops, commissions, courses -- occupied every single hour.

You said that you were happy, however, that you had a great honor... If there was any proposal for a law, or some text forward, joy!, but it was very rare. Or when you said what you wanted, you liked it! But I've had the biggest enemies inside, inside the coalition. Some members played very well, but others, instead... Once a colleague raised my hand, a threatening gesture, and I said, “If you do that, I will file a
complaint against you!”

Finally, when do we have the next demonstration? You don't lose one -- Ha, ha -- I'm a
protester, yes, but sometimes it looks like we do things wrong. In mid-May, EHE manifested in Pamplona the Basque Government throughout Navarre. We met hundreds of people. I am delighted, but on June 10 there is another call! It is better to make a big demonstration than two small! People don't show up as before. However, I will see myself in the two demonstrations, that of May and that of June. I am a great demonstrator.

You got inside the “Euskara zertarako! I have also heard Christian talk. Why the Basque Country! Thanks now to Irulegi. I was very happy when they found their hand. Maria Chivit herself had to say that it was
a satisfaction, that it was an honour. But then, in the election campaign, the Basque country is not the PSN. That's Euskaphobia, you don't dare to say, but they're in there. If they could, they would say anything!

JAVIER ESCALATION

“Along with those of Euzko Basterra and EGI, more people were moving against the dictatorship. At the university level, for example, Javier Climbing, Mirentxu Purroy -- they also moved. They were participating with us in Santa Agueda's petition, and he's the first Olentzero. Escalation later [1966] was captured, along with others, in the distribution of pamphlets against the Franco referendum. And he committed suicide, or Swiss, I don't know."

RETIRED STAKE

“He went to the Monday of the retirees, to the plaza of the City Hall of Pamplona. Once they started singing a song in the melody of L’estaca! We retirees… started singing in the melody of L’estaca. I didn't like it, and I explained to them what L'estaca meant, and I told them I hadn't done it right, I didn't go to concentrations. Then they told me they had taken it off and I went back. And again L’estaca, with those words of the retirees! I also posted on Facebook ‘Respeta L’estaca’. Ignore. Since then I don’t go to retiree concentrations.”

LAST WORD

ENCYCLOPEDIA

Juan Mari Feliu, Gotzon Bergerandi, Xabier Armendariz, Javier Climbing, Carlos Claveria, José Luís García Falces, Estornes Lasa, José Antonio Urbiola, Mirentxu Loiarte, Mirentxu Oiartzabal, Miguel Angel Ertxagajain