Calle de Núñez Morgado

A Chilean gives this street in the Castilla district its name. Aurelio Núñez Morgado (1885-1951) was a civil engineer and a politician of the Radical Party, senator for the northern provinces of Tarapacá and Antofagasta before arriving in Madrid in 1935 as Chile’s ambassador. He drew the worst possible moment. When the Civil War broke out in July 1936, he was serving as dean of the diplomatic corps in the capital, and in the first days of the conflict he opened the Chilean legation to those fleeing persecution in Republican Madrid; the figures for those granted asylum range from a thousand to several thousand. His work also placed him on the contested side: the generosity of the asylum coexisted with sympathies towards the rebel side, and historians still debate the double edge of his humanitarianism. The street’s plaque keeps only two surnames and the trace of an embassy that, for one summer, was home to strangers.