Glennys Young, Chair of the Department of History and Professor of International Studies, will appear in a documentary, “Project Ninos: Cold War in Sunny Spain,” airing on Oct. 19 at 10:30 p.m. (Spain time), on DMAX.
This film explores an obscure story from the history of the Cold War. In 1937 thousands of Spanish children were sent to the USSR by their parents to escape the Spanish Civil War. When given the chance to return home in the late 1950's, many of them took the opportunity. The CIA saw this as an opportunity to get intelligence reports on the Soviet Union and subsequently carried out a mass interrogation program on this group of Spaniards over the course of 4 years.
Dr. Young, a specialist in Russia and Soviet Union history, was interviewed for this documentary in late June of 2019 in Alcalá de Henares, near Madrid, in the General Archive of State Administration. Dr. Young was in Spain doing research for her current book project, titled Returned: From the Soviet Union to Franco’s Spain in the Cold War.
View the trailer to learn more about this fascinating history!