David Schidlowsky on Maria Hagenaar and Malva Marina

Text of conference presented by Dr David Schidlowsky in memorial to Malva Marina

Conference at the event

Malva, een oorlogskind tusen Spaanse burgeroorlog en Deutse bezetting

 De Vondelbunker
Amsterdam, 3 October 2015

David Schidlowsky

Some words of introduction

I would firstly like to thank all those who made possible this evening and invited me in this wonderful city. I would like to extend my gratitude to Antonio Reynaldo.

Secondly, I would like to clarify that until the end of the twentieth century there were three major biographies of Pablo Neruda: Margarita Aguirre’s Las vidas de Pablo Neruda (1973), Emir Rodríguez Monegal’s Neruda. El viajero inmóvil (1977), Volodia Teitelboim’s Neruda (1994) and an important memorial memory by Jorge Edwards entitled Adios poeta ... (1990). In all these works both Neruda’s daughter Malva Marina and his first wife Maruca Reyes were marginal and almost nonexistent.

I started working on Neruda in the nineties and published my first book about him in 1999. In this first book, which was my PhD thesis about the life of Neruda between 1904 and 1949, I already clarified the fate of Malva Marina and Maruca Reyes during this period, also including the life of Malva Marina. But it was a small edition. It was not before the late 2003 that I pubished my full biography of Pablo Neruda in two volumes. I asked a rich friend of mine, if he could finance a private edition of 80 copies, that I sent for nothing to many known nerudistas in France, Italy, Germany, Argentina, Mexico and Chile etc. and a few newspapers.

The book had a very large success and was discussed controversially. From February 2004 on it was present in the discusions about the poet. Two major discussions emerged out of the confrontation with my book: first, my discoveries about the behavior of Neruda and the destiny of Maruca Reyes and Malva Marina, the only daughter of Neruda; and, second, Neruda's relationship with the communist movement and the Stalinism.

Due to this success, in 2008 the publishers RiL editores in Santiago de Chile, published an updated and enlarged edition of my biography of Neruda entitled Pablo Neruda y su tiempo. Las furias y las penas, in two volumes, which again was accompanied with various reviews and articles on different countries.

My purpose in writing this biography was not to exalt the greatness and to silence the miseries of Neruda, but to grasp the essence of his life and chores. I do not intend to judge the poet; I am only trying to find an approach to the human being, to the poet and politician that Pablo Neruda was.

This conference tries to clarify only a part of the relationship between Neruda and his first wife Maruca Reyes (the years 1933-43) and the life of the daughter Malva Marina (1934-43).

Maruca Reyes and Malva Marina in the shadow of Neruda. 

From Argentina to the Netherlands (1933-43)

In August 1933, Pablo Neruda was appointed consul in Buenos Aires. At the end of the month Neruda and Maruca Reyes went to Buenos Aires, where Neruda took up office on September 2. Although they moved into an attractive apartment, Neruda and Maruca’s marriage problems were not banned. Maruca did not accept the way of life of the poet and Consul. As in Santiago before, she also disapproved the boozy night life of the poet and the evening events in cafes in Buenos Aires.

The kitchen of the apartment where they lived was legendary: a large room, with a floor made of white marble with fine edges of blue ceramic. Soon they got a visit, the Chilean writer María Luisa Bombal. She was the only friend Marucas at that time. Another witness of the time was the Chilean writer María Yáñez Flores. She describes a scene which she has witnessed:

"After dinner Neruda suggested to end the evening in "Signo", a writers center. Then Maruca disappeared into the bedroom, while she gave a sign to Neruda. He followed her. Shortly afterwards we heard the screams of an excited dispute... Neruda and Maruca came out of the bedroom, he the saddest Indian, she still shaken with anger".¹

A short time later Maruca became pregnant and the situation at home became even tenser. The pregnancy was difficult and, although Neruda got a new job in Barcelona, the pregnancy forced him to postpone the trip to Europa. The first months where complicated for Maruca, and to take a trip was difficult, especially when we consider that Maruca probably had already had once a miscarriage in Batavia.
[The problems of this time are reflected in Neruda's poem "Maternity (Maternidad)", from his book “Residence on earth”.]

In Buenos Aires Neruda met the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca. This encounter should have had great influence on his entire poet life.

Later, the problems with the pregnancy and the situation of Maruca calmed down and they could travel. So by the end of May 1934, Neruda and Maruca came to Barcelona. Despite the pregnancy, the relationship between Neruda and Maruca was almost broken; the initial love of their life together barely remained.

Soon Neruda realized that his place was not in Barcelona but rather in Madrid, the cultural center of the country, where there were almost all of his friends. So he managed to get the post of cultural attaché at the embassy in Madrid.

Neruda and the still pregnant Maruca Reyes moved into an apartment, which was to become famous later in the poems of the poet: in the "House of Flowers" ("Casa de las flores").

Shortly after they had set up in Madrid, on August 18, 1934 Malva Marina was born, the only child that Neruda ever had. The joy did not remain long, because Malva Marina was born with a water head. For the poet and his wife Maruca this was a painful experience, which they could never get over. In addition to this, the relationship between Neruda and Maruca did not improve after the birth of the daughter as hoped, but rather got even worse.

At that time Delia del Carril came into Neruda’s life, and over time she became increasingly important for him. Delia del Carril came from the province of Buenos Aires, she was a communist, had studied avant-garde art in Paris - and was almost twenty years older than Neruda (Maruca was almost 4 years older than the poet). This did not prevent them from beginning a relationship. For Neruda this relationship turned out to be a kind of help and rescue.

The attraction between the two was such that Delia started to live in the house of Neruda and Maruca. According to some biographers she fetched him "to bed". Delia was also his "secretary", she typed his poems on the machine, and sometimes she corrected them when she thought that some verses appeared superfluous - a role that Maruca could not assume, even because of her lack of language and education, or simply due of her totally different personality.

In February 1935 Maruca sent a letter to the parents and the sister of Neruda in Chile. It is an interesting letter because it is one of the few examples of Maruca’s thinking at that time. She writes in Castilian. Here the part of the letter where she talks about Malva. It is still not clear if she really knew the true health condition of the Malva Marina:

“Malva is 5 1/2 months now and is very sweet. She has grown and fatted too much. She was born with 47 cm. and now she is 71 cm high, what scares me a lot, because I will feel bad if she will be as tall as me. She is a very happy girl that never cries and is smiling all the time. Everyone loves her and finds her pretty and smart. A few days ago she started to eat porridge like an adult... She also drinks orange juice, tomatoes and grape with sugar and a few drops of cod liver oil. She is doing a UV treatment to give force for their bones, which is good for health in general”.²

The next time in the life of Maruca and Neruda is going to be coined by the closer relationship between Nerudas and Delia del Carril, the problems in the marriage of the couple Maruca-Neruda, and the development problems of the daughter Malva Marina.

In September/October 1935 Neruda published the full version of his book “Residence on earth” (Residencia en la tierra), one of his most important publications. The poems of this book represented ten years of work and had a great repercussion in Spain. Many of the texts on this book are written in a strange and complex style that, rather than clarifying the message, shows the poet’s mood at that time. Loneliness, pain and sadness are the issues with which the poet approaches the cusp of a process of negation of life. Several poems in this book give expression to an extreme despair, emptiness and to an aggressive dismantling of existence. At least three poems in this book reflect the illness of Malva Marina, and the problems between Maruca and Neruda: “Melancolía en las familias” (Melancholy in families), “Maternidad” (Maternity) and “Enfermedades en mi casa” (Diseases at home).

There are evidences of this time that describe Neruda as a poet that actually cannot see or is not willing to see the really state of Malva Marina. The Spanish poet and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1977 Vicente Aleixandre, described years later, a visit to Maruca an Neruda’s house in this epoch. His description is an important witness and interpretation of the contemporary drama of Maruca and Neruda:

„Pablo bended towards something that looked like a cot. I saw him from far and heard his voice saying Malva Marina, can you hear me? Come Vicente, come! Look how wonderful. My daughter. The most beautiful in the world. .... He looked happy to the cot. He had a happy smile and there was a blind softness in his deep voice... I came ... See, see. I came closer and then the cot finally revealed its content. A big head, a relentless head that had eaten the facial features and was just that: a cruel head, grown without compassion, without interruption to the loss of fate. A creature (was she one?), to which was not possible to look without pain. A lot of stuff in disorder. I was pale, I looked up, I mumbled some sounds towards those who were awating for my reaction and I put on a mask wearing something like a smile. Pablo hat a bright expression, radiated unreality, dream, and his dreaming had the strength of the stone, the pride of his happiness, the thanksgiving to a gift from heaven. I was able to understand, but I cannot explain it.”³

It’s not a simple description.

Another description of this time is made by the Secretary of the Chilean Consulates Luis Enrique Délano. He remembers Malva Marina with these words:

“...a pale girl with dark hair and dark eyes, like those of Neruda. Perhaps she had the facial shape from Maruca... I remember Malva in her crib and in the pram where the mother took her to the park.... She did not speak, she only looked with her big and sweet eyes, like frightened. And she sang! Her mother, who was a very good singer, she had taught her to sing and the girl followed the melody of the songs also with a very good ear”.⁴

1936. The situation in the Spanish capital was increasingly dangerous. Almost every day there were raids, more and more strikes and shootings in the streets (a stray bullet crashed through the window of the apartment of Federico García Lorca⁵). In the face of the uncertain situation in Madrid, in early July 1936, Neruda convinced Maruca to go with the daughter to Barcelona, where the Chilean Consul Maquieira promised to take care of them. Now he could live almost openly with Delia del Carril. ⁶

Days later, on 18 July 1936, began the Spanish Civil War. The war changed the life of Neruda, Maruca and the daughter Malva Marina considerably. But also the poetry of Neruda changed. The early nihilism was over, and he began to write a different kind of poetry, an engaged poetry. Neruda himself told, when he described his first poem of this kind “Canto a las madres de los milicianos muertos” (Song to the mothers of the dead militants), that this is “a proletarian poetry”⁷. It is not a poem with a clear political message, but a partisanship and an outcry against injustice in Spain. Later this poem became part of “España en el corazón” (Spain in the heart - 1937), and “Spain in the heart” on its side became incorporated in the anthology of poems “Tercera Residencia”(Third Residence - 1947).

On November 7, 1936 Madrid was bombed violently again. On November 10, Neruda traveled from Madrid to Valencia and then to Barcelona where he met his wife and daughter. ⁸

Shortly after, Neruda moved to Marseille with his family and in December 1936 he had to make a difficult decision: he definitely broke up with his wife Maruca and the daughter Malva Marina. He traveled to Monte Carlo and left them in the house of Barend van Tricht, the groomsman on the wedding between Neruda and Maruca in Batavia in 1930. He promised Maruca to send money every month,⁹ a promise that he scarcely kept.

Neruda went back to Marseille and from there to Paris and from February 1937 on he began to live openly his relationship with Delia del Carril. In Paris he came nearer to the communist movement. He began to work for institutions that had the financial support of the Komintern.

We don´t know exactly if Maruca knew the kind of relationship that Neruda and Delia del Carril had. Anyway, once she wrote a letter from Monte Carlo to the President of Chile asking him to help the whole family returning to Chile. She received and answer from the Secretary of State of Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He considered repatriation with better conditions for them.¹⁰ But Neruda has no interested in returning to Chile and decided to stay in Europe. His first priorities were now his political activities for the Spanish Republic and the communist movement, even if this led to conflicts with the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, because as a Consul he was committed to maintain political neutrality.

Months later, in July 1937, Maruca and Malva Marina, moved to Den Haag, Holland with the help of the family van Tricht. But the money that Neruda sent monthly was not enough for the maintenance of the mother and the sick daughter. Maruca had to find a work and someone who could take care of Malva Marina. In the city of Gouda Maruca she found a charitable family, which agreed to take care of the child. This family, Hendrik Julsig and Gerdina Sierks with their three children, engaged a Nanny, Nelly Leijis, that should be dedicated exclusively to Malva Marina. The family Julsig, which Maruca learned via the church association “Christian Science”,¹¹ paid Nelly Leijis from the money that they received from Maruca. Maruca tried to travel from Den Hague to Gouda at least once a month to visit her daughter at the family Julsig’s place.¹²

In August 1937 after his success during the II Congress of Writers for Cultural Freedom (II Congreso de Escritores por la Libertad de la Cultura) and without the hope of getting a new position as a Consul of Chile, Neruda decided to go back to Chile. He wrote a letter to his sister, silencing the separation from Maruca and telling her that:

“Maruca remains with the child and with her family in Holland, until we know what will be my destiny”.¹³

In September 1937 Maruca wrote a letter to the “mamadre” (the stepmother of Neruda) saying:

“... Neftali is in his way to Chile and will reach Valparaiso more or less on the 8^th of October. He is going to tell you everything. I hope he will find everyone well”.¹⁴

This letter shows that there is no definitive breakdown of the marriage, at least not from Maruca’s side. We do not know if Neruda traveled to Holland before returning to Chile, but a connection must have existed because Maruca knew the exact travel dates of Neruda.

Neruda’s return to Chile in October 1937 was a triumph. At that time he was already a famous poet with an international reputation. Neruda und Delia del Carril, the Argentina communist artist, rapidly got integrated in the artist, intellectuals and political circles of the country. Neruda is strongly engaged in the solidarity with the Spanish Republic and against all forms of fascism in Chile. He actively participated in the election campaign of the candidate of the Popular Front Pedro Aguire Cerda in 1938 and he was one of the most important intellectuals who supported the candidacy. The election of Pedro Aguirre Cerda changed the politics in Chile.

In the meantime Maruca found a job at the Spanish embassy in The Hague. Her superior was José María Semprún Guerra, father of the later famous Spanish writer Jorge Semprún. In February 2008, I had a conversation with Jorge Semprún. He remembers Maruca Reyes and the work at the embassy, without further details, because at that time he was only 15 years old. But he especially remembered that he and the other children named Maruca "The Giraffe", because of her size.¹⁵ This is the confirmation that Maruca had a work by then, which may not have been well paid, and that to make the work she should at least be able to speak a little Spanish.

Over time things got complicated. On November 18, 1938, Maruca wrote Neruda a bitter letter in English. She starts calling him "My dear Pig" and appeals to Neruda not to forget his parental obligations, especially the monthly payments, since her salary was not enough to cover her expenses and especially the cost of the daughter. Maruca reminds him of his promise that he would always worry about them:

“It is incredible how you are neglecting us, especially your baby. Today is the 18^th of the month, I haven´t received yet any money from you. On the first of the month I had to pay the board and lodging of Malva Marina for the month of October. With my salary I can only pay a part of it; now the poor people are still waiting desperately for the rest of it. What a shame really! They are such good people and you treat them in this way abusing them. What can I do with Malva Marina if one day they say that they can´t go on this way, where should I bring her. I will never find such good people again. .... Now I can´t even go to see her as I haven´t got a cent, my last money will be spent to mail this letter. And also other payments are waiting. I think you are awful, awful, I can´t find words for it. It can´t be because you haven´t got the money, as your position now is far better than ever before in Chile on account of the successful election of the new President of the Frente Popular. Also it can´t be because you can´t find in Santiago travel checks as you told me many times... And you promised me a thousand of times that you would always take care of us”.¹⁶

We don´t know Neruda’s answer.

From then on the destiny of Maruca and Malva Marina began to be more and more dark not having much repercussion in the poet’s activities. Actually they converted into a trouble and Neruda with the time develops indifference regarding the destiny of his wife and daughter.

When the Popular Front came into power in January 1939, Neruda was nominated Consul for the Spanish emigration. One of his tasks was to bring to Chile those Republicans who were detained in concentration camps in France, but, as Neruda wrote to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he was only willing to rescue those who were “useful for the country”.¹⁷ And Neruda acted in a discriminatory way towards another group as he tried that no anarchist should be among those who travel to Chile. In a letter he wrote: “I have refused the entry of anarchists. Mexico received them until recently and now they don´t know what to do”.¹⁸

On the first of April 1939, Francisco Franco made his triumphal march into Madrid and the Spanish Civil War came to an end. This had repercussions for all Spanish refugees in France, but also for those who had worked outside Spain for the Republic, like in diplomatic missions. Maruca, the wife of one of the stronger non Spanish intellectual enemies of Franco’s Regime, lost her work too. Whe don´t know exactly when, but we know that this further complicated the economic situation of Maruca and Malva Marina.

After the successful sending of a ship with about 2.000 refugees, Neruda traveled twice to Holland and visited his wife and daughter, in August and November 1939. It is not known if Delia accompanied him. No details of the visit are known. We only know that it was made, because there is a mention of it in a letter from Maruca years later. After the death of Malva Marina, and when the indifference of Neruda towards his wife and daughter became clearer, Maruca wrote from the occupied Netherlands to the ambassador of Chile in Switzerland, who had the responsibility for the Chileans in the occupied territories. Marucas says that in these visits Neruda assured her that she could always count on his help.¹⁹ This was the last time that Pablo Neruda saw his daughter. She was only five years old when she met her father for the last time.

With the outbreak of World War II, Neruda traveled to Chile. In May 1940 the Netherlands was occupied and one of the cruelest occupations of Western Europe began. One month later, on June 1940 a request for help from Maruca came to Santiago through diplomatic sources.²⁰ It is the beginning of a stormy exchange of letters, orders, cables and messages that will continue for years. On the one hand, Maruca didn´t have a work or if she had one she did not earn enough money to keep herself and to maintain the diseased girl, on the other hand, Neruda not always hold the promise of sending her money.

On August 21, 1940 Neruda became the General Consul of Chile in Mexico City. A few days later, the ambassador of Chile in Berlin (it was not until January 1943 that Chile broke relations with Germany), wrote to Neruda that Maruca had no money because she couldn’t change checks. But days later the ambassador informed that he had managed to give Maruca the money for three months, but that she was still waiting for the payment of the rest of the debts.²¹

There are no documents to know exactly how the situation of Maruca continued until the end of 1941. On December 30, Neruda received information from Berlin that the situation of Maruca was unsustainable. She had no money and asks for the agreed $ 100 monthly. A few days later, Neruda responds that he could not fulfill his duties due to the fact that he had missed the promised promotion from the Ministry. He omits any personal responsibility.²²

Months later, Neruda decides to seek ways to officially divorce from Maruca, and ask a lawyer to begin the divorce treatments, without the knowledge of Maruca. Thus, on April 24, 1942, in the city of Cuernavaca, the capital and largest city of the state of Morelos in Mexico, the judge Alvaro Venegas published in the local newspaper an announcement where Maruda is requested within three days to answer the divorce asked from Neruda because of “incompatibility characters”. The request, published on the May 3, added that in case of no reply, the divorce is going to be announce.²³ Of course Maruca in the Netherlands under Nazi German occupation, moneyless, without possibility to travel with a diseased child, could not respond within the prescribed period, much less to attend the trial. There are evidences that she did not even found out what happened.

For earlier biographers before my publications, it was hard to explain Neruda’s behavior. So they decided, or cited each other, that the death of Malva Marina had to have happend before the official divorce of Neruda from Maruca. It was falsely argued that the daughter died in late 1942 and that the divorce was consummated in 1943, but, as we see, this was not the case. By the way, the divorce was not accepted by the Chilean court, and therefore Neruda was married to Maruda officially until her death in March 1965.²⁴

The next time on life of Maruca and Malva Marina in the occupied Netherlands was very difficult. In conversation with Antonio Reynaldos in 2004, Frederick Julsing, the son of Hendrick Julsing and Gerdina Sierks, remembers that “that were very hard years. My father went with his tricycle to the field to get food. There were air raids and Gouda suffered greatly. Until now hearing sirens reminds me of those times” he said.²⁵ We preserved these memories thanks to the research of the Chilean author Alejandra Gajardo, who discovered Julsing Frederick’s site in internet.

On the 4^th of November Neruda received through the Ministry in Santiago a request from Maruca to "re-join her husband" in Mexico.²⁶ We do not know if Maruca knew the divorce sentence made in Mexico months before, but with this cable is clear that if she knew that, she clearly did not accept it.

In February 1943, Neruda travelled to New York. He made several recitals and had a huge success with poetry nights and interviews for radio and newspapers. But a message from Holland, from the 19^th of March, should have shaken him. Neruda received a message through the Chilean ambassador in Bern, Carlos Morla Lynch, who was responsible for all Chilean affairs in Germany and the occupied territories, because in the meantime, Chile had broken the relationship with Germany. That message he was given came from Maruca Reyes, who informed him that the daughter Malva Marina had passed away in Holland on March 2, 1943 "without pain".²⁷ Maruca expresses again the request to go back to her husband. This is another proof that perhaps she did not know that they were already divorced by Mexican law.

Neruda never expressed grief over the death of his daughter. As far as we know, he never wrote something, not a poem not a remark about it. Was the political fight more important than the destiny of his Child? This is one of the greatest mysteries in the life of the Chilean poet.

The following period in the life of Neruda is characterized by a dichotomy difficult to explain. On the one hand his apathetic relationship with the destiny of Maruca Reyes, who lived in the Netherlands at the time of German Nazi occupation, and on the other side his open solidarity with the battle of the Soviet Union. In the period that followed, he stood fully and steadily available to the communist cause, notwithstanding the fact that he was obliged as a diplomat, to maintain political neutrality.

In May 1943, Neruda’s life reached the lowest point, a deep inhuman level. Maruca Reyes asked to be transferred to Chile, to come out from the occupied Netherland, after the death of their daughter. The Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs gave a positive feedback on her request. But Neruda refused to give the consent, and even threatened to break off completely the support that he gave her. Neruda does this knowing about the difficult situation in the occupied Netherlands, as reflected in his poem "New love song to Stalingrad" (written and pubished a few months earlier).²⁸

Maruca will remain fighting to survive under Nazi occupation. We don´t know how she survived, but we know that she took care of the grave of Malva Marina till the end of her life in 1965. On the other side, we do not know if Neruda ever visited the grave of Malva Marina.

The grave survived the years by miracle, and was discover by Gim Klatser in 2003 in the city of Gouda. But this is another story.

1 Yáñez, Maaria Flora: “Historia de mi vida. Fragmentos”. Santiago de Chile 1980, p. 251-253.

2 Letter from Madrid from the 3 of February 1935. In: Reyes, Bernardo: “Neruda. Retrato de familia 1904-1920”. San Juan Puerto Rico, 1996, p. 125-126.

3 The text with the name „Mit Pablo Neruda“ was published 1987. Here from: Revista Atenea, N. 471, Concepción, Chile 1995.

4 Quoted in: Teitelboim, Volodia: “Neruda”. Santiago de Chile 1994, p. 183.

5In: Gibson, Ian: “Federico García Lorca”. Vol. II: “De Nueva York a Fuente grande (1929-1936). Barcelona 1987, p. 434.

6In: Sáez, Fernando: “Todo debe ser demasiado. Biografía de Delia del Carril, La Hormiga”. Santiago de Chile 1997, p. 106.

7So described Neruda the poem against the Secretary of the Chilean Consulates Luis Enrique Délano. In: Délano, Luis Enrique: „Sobre todo Madrid“. Santiago de Chile 1970, p. 115.

8According to the report from 10 November 1936 by Maquieira to the Foreign Minister. In: Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Chile, Archivo General Histórico, Santiago de Chile: Vol. 1499: Archivo Confidencial 1936.

9 From a letter that Neruda send to Delia del Carril on 10 December 1936. In: Fundación Neruda, Casa-Museo La Chascona, Santiago de Chile, Sección Biblioteca y Archivo: Correspondencia Neruda.

10 Letter from 17. April 1937 send to Monte Carlo. In: Fundación Neruda, Casa-Museo La Chascona, Santiago de Chile, Sección Biblioteca y Archivo: Correspondencia Neruda.

11 One in 1875 by Mary Baker-Eddy founded sect that spread a doctrine of salvation “that sickness is an illusion that can be corrected by prayer alone”. (wikipedia)

12 From conversations that I had in Holland 2005. Besides that: Jara, Ximena: “La ruta de Malva Marina, tras la pista de la hija de Pablo Neruda”. In El mostrador, 9 September 2005; Gajardo, Alejandra: “M. Antonia Hagenaar. Una mujer con tres sombreros”. In: Fibra, N.32, Santiago de Chile 2005.

13 Letter from 20 August 1937. In: Neruda, Pablo: “Cartas a Laura”. Madrid 1978, p. 66.

14 Letter from 2 September 1937. In: Reyes, Bernardo: “Neruda. Retrato de familia 1904-1920”. San Juan Puerto Rico, 1996, p. 128.

15 The conversation take place im Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut, 6.2.2008, when Semprum open the exposition “España en el corazón”.

16 Letter in: Fundación Neruda, Casa-Museo La Chascona, Santiago de Chile, Sección Biblioteca y Archivo: Correspondencia Neruda.

17 Letter from 19 April 1939. In: Fundación Neruda, Casa-Museo La Chascona, Santiago de Chile, Sección Biblioteca y Archivo: Correspondencia Neruda.

18 Letter from 19 June 1939. In : Fundación Neruda, Casa-Museo La Chascona, Santiago de Chile, Sección Biblioteca y Archivo: Correspondencia Neruda.

19 Letter from 8 September 1943. In: Fundación Neruda, Casa-Museo La Chascona, Santiago de Chile, Sección Biblioteca y Archivo: Correspondencia Neruda.

20 Comunication from 5 Jun 1940. In: Archivo Nacional de Chile, Sección Siglo XX, Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, cables cambiados Mision Alemania s/n, 1940.

21 Letter in: Fundación Neruda, Casa-Museo La Chascona, Santiago de Chile, Sección Biblioteca y Archivo: Correspondencia Neruda.

22 Letters from 30.9.1941 and 2-3 January 1942. In: Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, Archivo General Histórico, Santiago de Chile, Vol. 1884, Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores: Sección Clave: Archivo Confidencial: cables cambiados Consulares américa 1941.

23 Published in: Periódico Oficial, Cuernavava, Morelos, May 3, 1942, p. 4.

24 Explained at length in: Schidlowsky, David: “Pablo Neruda y su tiempo. Las furias y las penas”. Santiago de Chile 2008, p. 532-533.

25 From: El secreto mejor guardado de Neruda. Descubierto el rostro de Malva Marina, la única hija del poeta. In: El Cultural, Madrid, 22.9.2015

26 In: Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, Archivo General Histórico, Santiago de Chile, Vol. 1978: Consulados de Chile en América, Telegramas enviados 1942.

27In: Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Chile, Archivo General Histórico, Santiago de Chile: Vol. 2166: Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, Archivo Confidencial, Cables recibidos de la Legación en Suiza, 1943.

28 More in: Schidlowsky, David 2008: „Pablo Neruda y su tiempo. Las furias y las penas. Santiago de Chile 2008, p. 552-54.