“In the orphanage, hunger continued to torment Oliver and his friends: they were given nothing but burruntzales a day, except on holiday, which gave them a piece of bread with the papilla. Three months later, the children risked asking for more food, and after putting in suertes, it was Oliver's turn to make the petition. (…) The child was locked up for a week in a cold, dark room, where he spent days and nights, weeping bitterly. Only in the dining room they let him leave the room to be beaten in front of his friends.” Oliver, referred to in the paragraph, is called Twist, and the words are written by Charles Dickens. And that's the image that most of us have received and that the movies or literature have given of cribs or houses of mercy for children. Eva García Magkidá, for his part, has collected the history of the house Fraisoro in the book The Children of Fraisoro. He wanted to reflect the harsh reality, but he also explained that the basis was laid for starting to deal with these tragedies in a different way.

In 1900 the Provincial Savings Bank of Gipuzkoa made a donation of 20,000 pesetas for the construction of the new house cribs. Before that, in most cases, children abandoned by poverty were deposited on the bulls of Gipuzkoa – at the gates of the convents were used to anonymously leave the children – and since 1844 the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa was in charge of the esposits – the children were in the hands of the institutions. But the wet-nurses' network wasn't enough, the resources were not enough, and the mortality rate for these children was huge. At the end of the 19th century, there was a change of conscience towards children: a movement was initiated to protect the health and rights of children. The desire to improve the husbands sector also reached the Gipuzkoan administration, and the assistance from the savings bank was essential.

House of children (and mothers)

The Fraisoro house in Zizurkil opened its doors in the summer of 1903 to some 40 children who were on the Donostian lathe, and some 14,000 children would go there until the center closed in 1994. In 1913, lathes were removed in order to facilitate abandonment. The children came from the maternity wards of the hospitals of Donostia and Tolosa. Otherwise, they had to surrender to the portal. That year, a maternity room was installed in the same cot house, but immediately became small and in 1921 the mother house was built next to the otra.Uno of the main objectives of
Eva García has been to make visible the reality of these women: “Those who had the support of the family also had to endure a very harsh situation abroad, in society.” There is no concrete profile of these mothers: “There was everything. There were women from the world of prostitution and in a marginal state, but they were not the majority”. Many simply ended up dealing with their boyfriends in Fraisoro. And there were also some who were forced by their relatives or superiors.

External and internal chuckles

Feeding newborns was essential for their survival. It was soon found that artificial milk increased mortality, so the nursing mothers were advised to breastfeed the children, both outdoors and indoors. In addition, the affective bond generated by natural breastfeeding facilitated the child's stay with the mother or the nurse who breastfed.

Most of the external nurseries were home-dwelling, newly disappeared and, therefore, in perfect state of lactation. The wetsuits were rewarded. In 1916, they paid 26 pesetas a month to babies to breastfeed, and as the children progressed in their age, less; thus, the pay for care of children aged 5 to 6 years was 10 pesetas.

Most of the insides were single mothers who had had the child in Fraisoro or in the hospital. The Administration also gave them free hospital delivery and the medical expenses and financial assistance they received. As a counterpart, in addition to the mother's birth at home, the creature had to have drunk two months. After the deadline, most left Fraisoro, but there were people who did not want or could not come home. They could remain as nursery and, in addition to maintenance, they charged a salary. In order to enter Fraisoro, in addition to being a Gipuzkoan, the pregnant woman had to have a subordinate economic resource. Those who did not meet this condition were given the possibility of being there, paying maintenance expenses. They were called honorable or payable and had privileges over others, such as individual rooms. To go to Fraisoro, besides economic reasons, there were often “social” reasons. “Very few women had economic independence,” says Eva García, “and the boyfriend and, above all, the father had no choice but to obey.”

Some children came out of Fraisoro from the hand of the nurseries or mothers. In 1940, for example, 28 children left with their mother and 48 with their nurseries. Later, some nurseries regarded children as children in practice – although those who had biological children could not officially adopt the espositors – but others brought them back home.

In 1923 Fraisoro gathered the largest number of children: 333 in total. In the 1930s, this figure was not reduced to 200, and by 1976, more than 100 children a year went through it. The highest number of deliveries, however, was recorded in 1948. In that year, 76 children were born in Fraisoro and in the rest of the years the number was around 50. Since 1960 there has been a sharp decline and since 1968 there has been no delivery due to the tendency to transfer to external hospitals.

As for the mortality rate of prisoners, data from the Gipuzkoan institution were very positive compared to those from the inclusions in the area. The mortality rate for children who entered with their mother in 1943 was 0.7 per cent and for those who arrived without her 26.1 per cent. The data for the listing in Bizkaia were the same. But in Álava, 44% of the children without a mother and 63.6% of those who have arrived with their mother died that year, as in the Clusa of Madrid.

“Luxury” house for the marginalized

Does this mean that Fraisoro was better than the inclusions around him? The origin of the mothers who had entered Fraisoro may lead us to a similar conclusion, since they were from outside the province. In 1930-1950 alone, Gipuzkoan mothers accounted for 64% of mothers; 13.9% were Navarre, 4.6% came from Bizkaia, 2% from Valladolid and 2% from the French State.

Many praised the service of the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa, such as the writer José María Salaverría. In an article published in the journal ABC in 1910, Fraisoro was considered a palace. According to his own words, many of the lords who visited the nursery said that they would have no disadvantage in abandoning their children. “Marble, tap water, air and light, clean dryers, stucco floors, varnished walls; everything is clean, rich, rich, and excellent at the Casa de Cunas de Gipuzkoa”.

But as the article progresses, the writer leaves the building and looks at the children, for whom they are “children of pain.” Finally, he asks whether there will be a more lenient piety for these children in the future, if it is not more merciful to remove children from the pain with life than to condemn them to live like this.

For its sake, however, the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa was not of the same opinion. As Eva García says: “They wouldn’t do everything right, they didn’t even have the knowledge we have today in psychology, they were limited,” but, in general, it praises the will of the institutions, of the doctors, of the daughters of Charity and of the majority of the workers there exercised, in a difficult balance between the rights of mothers, children and adoption families. “Although far from perfection, taking into account also the religious character of the society of the time, I think they managed with a certain order the resources they had. The problem was not in Fraisoro, the problem was society, despite wanting to hide in Fraisoro.”