María Consuelo Beltrán (91)
Spain

María Consuelo Beltrán has spent her whole life in Irún, the town in the Basque Country in which she was born. She was eight years old when the military, under General Francisco Franco, staged a coup against the Second Spanish Republic. That triggered a three­year civil war that is estimated to have claimed up to half a million lives. In October 1936, Save the Children distributed winter jumpers to 150 school children in Irún. Consuelo had to go without. She already had a jumper. There were other children who needed one more.

The Spanish Civil War has hit María Consuelo's hometown on the border river Bidasoa - with the force of a hurricane that takes everything with it: destroyed streets, burned remains of public buildings, abandoned houses. It is a war against the civilian population that the putschists led by General Franco* wage everywhere in Spain from 1936 onwards, with support from Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy.

An old photo in María Consuelo Beltrán's possession shows her class with the donated sweaters. None of the girls in the photo can see the destruction and chaos in the city. It was quite a special day when strangers from a relief organization - Save the Children - came to the school to distribute a whole pile of sweaters. But María Consuelo herself went away empty-handed, she says, because others were deemed more in need. One of her two sisters even had to return her copy, with which she can be seen in the photo, to the teacher afterwards. For the girl María Consuelo, the sweater she lost will remain her key memory of the war.

EU Commissioner Margrethe Vestager is used to being photographed at all times - quite unlike the Spaniard María Consuelo Beltrán. The Danish guest author reads Beltrán's multi-layered portrait like the map of a European life.