The Sort women’s prison

The women’s prison was located in a building adjacent to the men’s prison, in the same Plaça Sant Eloi. It was a small dwelling owned by Agustí Muxí Monroset, Sort’s attending physician. Records of entries and exits from the prison have been kept from 16 August 1938 to 17 November 1953. It is a single register where both men and women are recorded.

Between September 1938 and the end of 1939, the women listed in the following table were imprisoned. All of them were held at the disposition of the military authorities, either to testify, to be transferred to Tremp to be tried or to be evacuated from the region to other parts of Spain.

Coinciding with the arrival of the Francoist army in Sort, in 1938, a relentless repressive policy was enacted to charge the people who had played a role in defending the Republic by integrating the anti-fascist committees and the councils. Some of the women imprisoned between September and November 1938 are there to be trialled by the military authorities. This repression mirrored the indiscriminate violence perpetrated by the men of General Sagardia, who murdered some seventy people in the region without a trial.

Lluïsa Semino Pagès and Maria Tomasa Carrera from Rodés and Maria Moga from Esterri d’Àneu entered the women’s prison on 27 September 1938. Lluïsa Semino (Perpinyà, 1886) and Maria Tomasa (1902) together with the former’s brother, Francesc Semino Pagès (Perpinyà, 1889), were trialled in a court-martial that sentenced them to 12 years and 1 day of temporary imprisonment. The sentence was subsequently commuted, and they were released. In spite of this, in 1944 they were looked into for political responsibilities although, in the end, it seems that this case was not fully investigated.

Maria Moga Castellarnau (Esterri d’Àneu, 1912) was tried in an expedited summary proceeding involving fifteen Esterri residents. Maria was sentenced to 12 years and 1 day in prison. The sentence was subsequently commuted by half to 6 years and one day in prison. Imprisoned in the Provincial Prison of Lleida, in 1941 she obtained conditional release and went back to live in Esterri d’Àneu. One of Maria’s brothers, Pere, was also tried in a court-martial, which was eventually filed as they were unable to arrest him. Pere, a tradesman, was accused of being “very red”, a member of the National Confederation of Labour (CNT), of having participated in surveillance patrols as a militia and of threatening the right-wing people of the municipality.

Pilar Francesca Tomàs (Llessui, 1894), imprisoned on 28 September, was tried in two court-martials. The first, where her brother Manuel was also tried (Llessui, 1902), acquitted her, while Manuel was sentenced to 12 years’ and 1 day of ordinary imprisonment, accused of being a member of the Republican Left of Catalonia. In the second, she was charged with fourteen other people from Llessui, including her brother Manuel again, and the proceeding was filed. In the early 1940s, the Francesca Tomàs siblings were investigated for Political Responsibilities. Manuel was investigated in 1941 while Pilar’s investigation ended up not going ahead.

Adriana Llaràs Viladomat, from Llessui, who was also imprisoned on 28 September, although she appears to have been “evacuated”, was also a victim of Francoist repression and was tried at the same court-martials as Pilar Francesca. In the first trial she was acquitted, and the second trial was dismissed.

A second group of women were imprisoned to be subsequently evacuated to other parts of Spain. After the occupation of the region, the military authorities decided that family members of people who had fought with the Republican Army, fled in exile or were imprisoned, should be removed from Pallars. This repressive policy was intended to displace from the area those who were considered to be a danger to public order. In 1938, numerous families in the region had to go through this painful displacement, which involved leaving their home and their belongings behind. Mostly, they were mothers accompanied by their underage children. The military vehicles picked them up at various points in the region, then took them to Sort from where they were transferred to their final destination. The majority went to the province of Osca, where they were spread among several towns, including Tormos, Alcalà de Gurrea, Lupiñen, Ortilla and Montmesa.

This is what happened to the Rey Pau family from Casa “Roy” in Castellviny. Maria Pau Galí and her young children Enric, Alfons, Montserrat and Víctor were evacuated to Tormos. The father had fled to Andorra and their three other sons were fighting in the Republican army. As Enric Rey recalls, along with other people from Sort, including the family of Casa Teixidor (Maria Raimat and her daughters Adelina, Assumpció and Ramona), they were summoned by the mayor to the main square, from where they were forced to board military trucks and driven to the Aragonese town. Some families from Rialp were already travelling in the convoy and others were picked up in Gerri de la Sal and Tremp. The Rey–Pau family was in Tormos from May 1938 to January 1939. They slept for seventeen days on a cement floor with just two blankets to keep the five members of the family warm and dry. They were then taken to some old barracks that years before had served to house the workers who built the Sotonera swamp. They lived on aid provided by Auxilio Social, the main welfare service in Francoist Spain.

In November 1938, something happened which changed the lives of the “Roy” and the “Teixidors” in Tormos forever. On the night of 3-4 November, the soldiers’ guard located on the Bastida suspension bridge was attacked. As a result of this attack, General Sagardia is said to have proclaimed “I will shoot ten Catalans for each dead man on my watch”. According to historian Manuel Gimeno and as confirmed by prison records, that same day residents of Surp, la Bastida, Escàs, Altron, Bernui and Llessui were arrested, among them six women from La Bastida. 11 people were taken to Rialp and murdered in a building called “Molina de Josepet”. The repression not only affected the neighbours of Pallars Sobirà, the “Roy” from Castellviny and the “Teixidor” from Sort were brought from Tormos to Sort to be interrogated for the events of the Bastida. They were held at the prison and sent back to Aragon a few days later. Enric Rey recalls that he and his two younger brothers, Alfons and Victor, slept in the men’s prison while his mother and sister Montserrat slept in the women’s prison, which was located next to the men’s.

Most of the other women evacuees had family members who were also fighting in the Republican army or who had joined the anti-Fascist councils and committees before the arrival of the Francoist troops in the region. Among those who were part of the Republican army, it is noteworthy that Pilar Vilanova Mesull had a brother, Emili, who fought with the Cos de Carrabiners and another brother, Marcel·lí, who was charged in a court-martial together with other young men from Enviny. Elena Faurat, from Llessui, also had two brothers, Manuel and Àngel, who were Republican fighters. The two went into exile accompanied by Manuel’s wife and were interned in prison camps. Manuel in Agde, from where he applied to become a refugee in Mexico^, and Àngel in Barcarès. Another brother, Francis, was investigated by the Court of Political Responsibilities in 1939.

Josep Ramoneda Bolló, Maria Ramoneda’s brother, also fought in the Republican ranks, as did Josep Castellà Bringué, brother of Maria Castellà, who was tried in 1938 by a military court accused of defeatism.

For their part, sisters Rosita and Pepita Canut Bringué from Unarre had a brother, Antoni, who was arrested by the Francoist troops and sentenced to thirty