Voces del Prado

My father worked at the Prado Museum

José Manso Gómez, Textile and Panel Painting Conservator, 1953-1992

I lived at Noviciado 18 and my father used to work at the Prado Museum. He was there as the main doorman and also as the deputy concierge.
During the Civil War my father assisted in taking works out from the Museum as well as gold ingots. Nobody knew where they came from but they were being sent abroad and my father loaded them onto trucks. Surely they must have come from the Bank of Spain. Then we were sent to the north of France, to a place where they had stables from World War I. There on a haystack was where we slept and ate every day. Eventually we came back to Spain without any problems for returning—not even my father.
Since Sotomayor already knew him, he put him back at his previous post, at the ticket office. At the time one of his colleagues reported on my father and he stood trial. Luckily he got away because my grandfather had paid for the judge's studies. My father didn't get sent to a firing squad because that man was there, and he knew my dad's father and mother, my grandmother and grandfather.