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iMahal Interview Series:
David Gimbel
July 22, 2001
iMahal:
Egads, that sounds like a frightening experience and realization for a young boy. How old were you when that happened?
Gimbel:
I was about 7 years old. I don't remember it as being scary. I just remember it as being kind of an introspective experience. The priest showed it to me with a certain amusement about the fact that they had discovered this.
Another incident with my grandfather also sticks in my mind. Again I was about 6 or 7 years old. I had a Colombian nurse, and we were staying somewhere up in the Pyrenees with my grandfather. In the mountains you would meet all sorts of interesting people. Like most boys, I was obsessed with military things.
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..He put his fascist hat on my head..
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One day when my grandfather was away, my nurse, who was actually right-wing, started talking with a Spanish military officer who was up there. The guy had a jeep with a huge machine gun mounted on the back. He asked me if I wanted to take a ride and I said sure. He put his fascist hat on my head and we went off in this jeep together. When I eventually came back my nurse took a bunch of snapshots of it.
My grandfather was absolutely furious. Absolutely livid. And I didn't understand why because I had a perfectly great experience.
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..My grandfather was absolutely furious..
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But of course here was my grandfather, seeing me riding around with fascists in the mountains in a military vehicle, and I had no conception whatsoever of what had occurred. But I quickly realized why he was upset. I think that had a profound impact on me. A lot of the experiences I had in Spain, feeling the oppression of an autocratic government, probably a dangerous one in a lot of ways, strongly affected my feelings about governments, corporations, and autocratic structures.
All photographs copyright and courtesy of David Gimbel or Archaeos
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