PARES | Spanish Archives

Identification

Type:

Person

Preferred form:

Comas Camps, Juan (1900-1979)Other forms

Dates of existence/Biographical dates:

Alaior (Menorca, Illes Balears, España) 1900-01-23 - México 1979

History:

Spanish anthropologist who exiled in Mexico. He was born in Alayor (Menorca) in 1900. His father was school teacher, he had five brothers and no religious education. He carried out his basic studies in Palma de Mallorca, and was granted a scholarship to study in the "Residencia de Estudiantes" of Madrid in 1918. Some of his calssmates were García Lorca and Buñuel.

In 1921, he was graduated as Inspector of Primary Education, and was granted another scholarship from the "Junta de Ampliación de Estudios" to study in Geneva between 1927 and 1929. He met there Piaget, who was his Psicology teacher, and Pittard, his Anthropology teacher.

Before heading to Geneva, while working in Lugo as Inspector, he joined the POSE and was elected city councillor in 1931. He also worked as technician and foreign inspector of the Cultural Relations Committee within the Ministery of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation between 1933 and 1936. He worked and studied at the same time until 1939, when he moved to Geneva to study Life Sciences and a PhD of Anthropology.

When the Republic Government left Madrid, Camps decided to join the Communist Party, the only party that stayed to defend the city. He worked for the party in Madrid, Barcelona and Paris during three months. When the government settled in Barcelona, other institutions in charge of solving issues caused by the war were created, like the "Comisión de Niños Evacuados" that Camps himself founded and carried out looking for pictures and means of transport between different countries in order to evacuate those children that were alone or homeless.

He left Spain when the rebels army was close to Barcelona. He was in Argelés concentration camp, but managed to escape and asked for help to some friends of him in Perpignan. He arrived to Paris with his old diplomatic passport, but he was forced to leave the country and headed to Geneva, where Eugéne Pittard, rector of the University of Geneva, gave him shelter.

He finished his PhD and obtained the visa so he could go to Veracruz on board "Mexique" ship. He became Mexican citizen in 1940, and worked as teacher in the National School of Anthropology and History and as researcher in the National Institute of Anthropology and History. As supporter of Indian cultures, he was in charge of the magazine "América Indígena" and the "Boletín Indigenista". He also was teacher in several High Schools and in the Faculty of Arts of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). He died in Mexico City in 1979.

República Española, 1931-1939

Description: Inspector de servicios en el extranjero de la Junta de Relaciones Culturales.

Date of the event: 1933 - 1936

Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939

Description: Director de la Comisión de niños evacuados.

Date of the event: 1936 - 1939

Mexique (barco de vapor)

Date of the event: 1939 - 1942