as the forces of the Republic gathered strength, armies of faithful Roman Catholics carried images of the Virgin Mary, as protest and protection against groups they called godless. During the Spanish Second Republic, apparitions of the Virgin Mary were seen on Spanish soil at Ezquioga. Ramona Olazabal said that Mary had marked the palms of her hands with a sword. The visions at Ezquioga were widely covered in the press, as were sixteen other visitations of the Virgin reported in 1931 in Spain. These visions gained much credence in Integrist and Carlist circles and conservative elements in the Spanish Catholic Church actively encouraged the Fátima devotion as a way of countering the threat of atheistic Communism. In Portugal and its former colony of Brazil, conservative groups were sometimes associated with the veneration of Fátima. When Germany invaded Russia in 1941, some Catholics interpreted this in terms of the Fátima apparitions, and believed that the Virgin's prophecy was about to be fulfilled. The original apparitions took place during the six months immediately preceding the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, and the children related that the Lady talked to them about the need to pray for Russia. Lúcia admitted later that the children initially thought she meant prayers for a girl named "Russia". In the first edition of Sister Lúcia's memoirs, published after the outbreak of World War II, she focused on the issue of Russia. The warning by the Lady that "if Russia was not consecrated to God, it would spread errors throughout the world" was often seized upon as an anti-Communist rallying cry. The Blue Army of Our Lady of Fátima, for instance, has always been strongly anti-Communist and its members often associated the Fátima story in the context of the Cold War. The Blue Army is made up of Catholics and non-Catholics who believe that by dedicating themselves to daily prayer (specifically recitation of the Rosary), they can help to achieve world peace and end to the error of Communism. Organizations such as the Blue Army (now called the World Apostolate of Fátima) have gained the approval of the Catholic Church. Memoirs of Sister Lúcia The Fátima story developed in two parts: that which was reported in 1917, and information later mentioned in Sister Lúcia's memoirs which she wrote years later, after the church ruled that the events in Fátima were "worthy of belief." Some scholars argue that her memoir