Place of execution

The Francoists launched their final offensive against Catalonia on 23 December 1938, crossing the rivers that had formed a natural frontier and beginning to occupy Catalan territory. They took Barcelona, the capital, on 26 January, and reached the border with France on 10 February. Their order of the day left no doubts about the situation. “Today, our forces have victoriously taken all the passes on the French border, from Puigcerdà to Port-Bou. The war in Catalonia is over. Catalonia for the triumphant Spain of Franco”.

During the fifty-seven days it took the Francoists to cross Catalonia, the roads were full of people of all ages from all over Spain fleeing for the border. There were also prisones who had been convicted of being counter-revolutionaries: men and women accused of belonging to the fifth column, of helping people cross into France during the war, family members of people considered traitors to the Republic, and members of the clergy. Some had been taken out of the labour camps controlled by the Military Information Service, where they where they were building defensive emplacements or forts. Others had been on prison-ships, mostly in Barcelona, or in the castle of Montjuïc or the Model Prison.

Two groups of prisoners were transferred. After a short train ride, the first group was taken by SIM agents to Puigcerdà in the Pyrenees, on the border with France. They all arrived safely. The second group was taken in trucks to the sanctuary of Collell near Gerona, whvh had been converted into a prison to hold around 1,000 people, two hundred of whom were women. On 31 January, fifty-one prisoners who their captors thought might asume positions of ressponsibility in Franco’s Spain were separated from the rest. They were told that they were being sent to build an airfield near Banyoles, but after being taken only 150 yeards from the sanctuary, they were killed in a clearing in the forest. Two of them survived.

At the same time as the Republican army retreated in the face of the Francoist advance, it encountered the so-called “emboscados”. These were men who had hidden in farm houses or in the forest to avoid being drafted and who, if caught, were considered deserters. There are numerous documented cases during the Republican retreat of these “emboscados” who were killed after a being accidentally discovered or, believing that they had been found by Francoist troops, came out to greet them shouting “Long live Franco!”.