Servicio interior

Paris, 1940. The Nazi army has taken the city. The Basque Government in exile is forced into a hasty retreat, leaving behind compromising documents. When the Germans and the Franco regime find these documents, a relentless persecution is unleashed. At the heart of this true story —so extraordinary it seems like fiction— are four women: Bittori Etxeberria, Itziar Mujika, Delia Lauroba, and Tere Verdes, sisters and widows of militiamen who, from behind a veil of anonymity, wove a network that transmitted information to help prisoners, while they pretended to lead ordinary lives. It is also the story of the hatred between a Franco henchman in France, Pedro Urraca—later famous for having hunted down Companys—who kept watch on the Spanish refugees in Paris, and the exiled Lehendakari (President of the Basque Government), José Antonio Agirre. Built with short chapters and a strong visual style, the novel revolves around an unsolved mystery: who abandoned the documents that condemned the network? Was it a mistake or an act of betrayal? *Servicio interior* rescues from oblivion the courage, faith, and commitment of women who paid a very high price for their quiet heroism.