The deaths of at least six New Zealanders in Spain went largely unnoticed at home. But some groups within New Zealand saw Spain as more than a ‘far away side issue’.
On 1 June the troops who had been left behind faced either surrender to the Germans or escape into the hills if they could. Some who escaped were captured almost immediately, though others were able to stay away for the duration of the German occupation.
Much fiction of the forties and fifties concentrated on the trials of an isolated individual in a hostile, puritanical society. This theme mirrored the actual struggle of many New Zealand fiction writers to make a living and achieve acceptance.
