EXTRAVAGANT BEAUTY When my plane flew into Mallorca the previous afternoon I couldn’t help but gasp at the lush almost extravagant beauty of this small island: miles of pristine beaches hills that become mountains dotted with waterfalls a climate that is mild in the winter and warm in the summer

"C onstitution Day today” the taxi driver announces as we meander through the narrow streets of Palma town center and see closed stores and a dearth of people. “No Franco. Franco gone” he explains referring to the military dictator who ruled Spain from 1939 until his death in 1975. “Everyone wake up. Late. They’ll all have party.”

When we turn into the main street of Mallorca’s capital a carnival atmosphere already reigns. One man has spray-painted himself silver. He stands on a pedestal a human statue and I have to look twice to see that he is not iron but flesh and blood — even his eyes don’t move. A woman is dressed in traditional flounced Spanish dress. A jazz band sets feet tapping; the musicians grin as coppers are tossed into a battered hat. Men jump half to their feet as they offer to paint the portraits of passersby. An old man with teeth missing shows off the little models he has fashioned out of knotted reeds.

The exuberance on the island carries undertones of relief. While the reigns of Hitler and Mussolini ended with the Allied victory in World War II Franco’s military dictatorship extended its grasp for nearly four decades. Many Spaniards can remember him. And says our taxi driver “There are still people in the mainland who think he was a good man.”

Despite the jubilant atmosphere elsewhere as we approach the narrow streets of the medieval Jewish quarter we are confronted with a sobering reminder of history’s spirals of hatred intolerance and ultimate destruction. Although today there is an expatriate community of around 1 000 Jews from Israel Latin America and other parts of Europe living in Palma the history of the Jews who formed a thriving hub of Jewish life in Mallorca’s capital city during medieval times is tragic — and complicated.

Camelot of the Mediterranean

“When did the Jews first settle in Mallorca?” I ask Jose our guide for a tour of the Jewish quarter. We are looking out onto the harbor where above the blue waves the sky is a forest of masts. Thousands of boats are docked there from battered fishing boats to huge yachts that provide ocean tours to the tourists who flock to this Mediterranean island each summer.

Mallorca is part of the Balearic Islands an archipelago off eastern Spain that also includes Menorca Ibiza and Formentera as well as many smaller islands. Throughout history the Balearic Islands were a strategic landing place on the ancient trade routes between Western Europe Asia and North Africa. They were captured and recaptured over the centuries most notably by the Byzantines in 534 the Moors in the tenth century and then James I of Aragon in 1229.