Antonio Ortiz Ramírez (April 13, 1907 – April 2, 1996) was a prominent member of the National Confederation of Labor and the Iberian Anarchist Federation. He dedicated himself to woodworking throughout his life, held various positions of responsibility in the Barcelona Wood Union, belonged to the anarchist group "Nosotros", held the position of commander of the South Ebro Column, he also served an officer in the French Resistance and participated in a botched attack against Franco. After the Spanish Civil War he went into exile in France and later in Latin America.
Biography
Childhood and adolescence
He was born in the Poblenou neighborhood of Barcelona, the son of Valencian emigrants from Pedralba. Poblenou, being an industrial center, developed a deep union life in which Ortiz participated: at the age of 8 or 9 he attended a talk by Ángel Pestaña and regularly attended the Flor de Mayo cooperative where cultural activities were developed. At the age of 11, he began to work, as a result of his father's accident, to attend to family needs. From that age he worked in different carpentry shops and for some time he combined work and studies. In 1921, at the age of fourteen, he joined the CNT's Wood Union. During the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera he maintained the clandestine contribution, helped distribute Solidaridad Obrera and got involved in different cultural activities.
Militancy
Republic
With the fall of the dictatorship and the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic, the CNT experienced a great expansion. The anarcho-syndicalist organization was experiencing a bitter debate at that time between the Trentistas and Faístas. Ortiz was akin to the Faist tendency, of which Buenaventura Durruti and Juan García Oliver were notable representatives. He published some articles in the CNT's newspaper, Solidaridad Obrera, joined the Poblenou defense committee and accepted responsibilities in the Wood Union, of which he was appointed president in 1932. A few days after his appointment, a strike by the cabinetmakers' section began when the employers did not accept the union's demands: a 44-hour week, that the tools were in charge of the employers and abolition of all week-long festivities except for May 1. The strike began on November 14 and ended in mid-April of the following year, its duration was due to the fact that the conflict was not reduced to a labor issue (It was understood that the requests were very moderate and would be accepted without problem), but was part of the power struggle between the CNT on the one hand and the UGT and the state on the other, entities that the anarchist union did not recognize. While the strike was taking place, Ortiz was arrested for another reason: the January 1933 insurrection. The police detained him on his way to L'Hospitalet after having clashes in Atarazanas and El Clot. During his detention, together with other detainees, he suffered torture which, although overshadowed by the events in Casas Viejas, was later denounced in the press. During his time in prison, he became friends with García Oliver, with whom he would show great ideological affinity and would be the one to later introduce him to the Nosotros group. Upon leaving prison at the end of 1933, he joined the group together with Durruti, García Oliver, Francisco Ascaso, Gregorio Jover, Ricardo Sanz, José Pérez Ibáñez and Aurelio Fernández. In mid-1935 he was arrested along with Durruti, Aurelio Fernández and Ascaso. The prisoners were transferred from Barcelona to the Valencia prison, where they left a few weeks before the 1936 elections were called. From the election to the war, Ortiz was very present at rallies and conferences.
The Civil War
The days prior to the coup of July 1936 were very busy for Ortiz: he made an arms exchange in Asturias and coordinated with some related officers to sabotage the coup. During the time that the fight lasted in Barcelona, he was present at the confrontations in Parallel and in the taking of the Atarazanas. . He was present at the meeting that representatives of the CNT had with Lluís Companys and at the plenary session in which it was decided to collaborate with the other political forces.