1941-1947: The Los Queros guerrillas

Part of the widespread armed resistance to the regime, the Los Queros guerilla band operated in the city of Granada and in its environs in the years following the end of the Civil War of 1936-9, and the victory of the fascist and right-wing army of General Franco (pictured).

The group inflicted heavy losses on the Francoist government forces and their collaborators. The main members of the group were the four Quero Robles brothers (Antonio, Francisco, José and Pedro) and they had plenty of back-up.

The Queros brothers were the sons of a farm labourer who went on to become a watchman and eventually a butcher in Granada. This latter trade was plied in Albaicin and he had the help of his older sons. When the civil war erupted in 1936, and after Granada fell to the rebels, the family was targeted for persecution. A brother in law was shot, the father was jailed, and some of the brothers (Pedro, Antonio and Jos) escaped into the Republican zone. When the civil war ended, Pedro wound up in the Benalua de Guardix concentration camp, returning to Granada after he was released. However, he was soon forced to go into hiding after suffering persecution when it became know that during the civil war he had served with a special services (guerrilla) unit, and the family had to put it about that he had fled to France. Years later he emerged from hiding to join his brothers in their guerrilla activity. José and Antonio had also been jailed after the war ended but had successfully broken out of the La Campana prison in Granada and joined forces with other guerrillas (Medina, Salcedo, Villa, El Tito.) The fourth guerrilla brother, Francisco, was beaten up by the victors in the civil war, until he took to the hills in 1941.

The four Quero brothers were joined by others unhappy with Francoism; people like Antonio Velázquez (from Guéjar), Morales, and more. The Queros guerrilla band commanded the respect of the Francoist forces of law and order, so much so that they often could live fairly openly in Granada. Among their more outstanding actions were several robberies carried out in La Zubia and Granada in 1942-43, the kidnapping of General Estrada in 1943, and numerous gunfights with police detectives and Civil Guards, the execution of informers, amongst other things.

Nevertheless, from 1945 onwards, the police noose was tightening and the band began to suffer losses; Velázquez and Mecánico died in January 1945 when the Civil Guard dynamited their hide-out in Granada; in July it was Modestro's turn. After a fierce gun-battle in Granada itself, the Queros managed to escape but within days 36 year old Pedro took his own life when surrounded on Sacromonte, taking two of Franco's goons with him.

In 1946 Morales and Francisco Quero (23) were killed. Antonio Quero died on 22 May 1947. It seems that the fourth brother was killed in a shoot-out on 2 November 1944. By 1947 the Los Queros' guerrilla activity in Granada, the most significant libertarian guerrillas alongside El Raya's band, was over.