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Girona dignifies mass grave and places information panel at former provincial prison

With the support of the Democratic Memorial, Girona city has dignified the mass grave in the old municipal cemetery and placed an information panel at the former provincial prison in the Diocesan Seminary

The collaboration between Girona City Council and the Democratic Memorial to promote the recovery of the historical memory and heritage in our city has made both these actions possible. The project began with an information panel placed at the Jardí de la Infància air-raid shelter, which is part of the Democratic Memorial and Memory Spaces network of Catalonia and, since last May, an extension of the City History Museum.
After the Spanish Civil War, in the early years of the Franco dictatorship, over five hundred persons were executed outside the cemetery wall in Girona between 8 March 1939 and January 1945, most of whom were later buried in the mass grave in that same cemetery.
Another memory space recently endowed with an information panel is the former provincial prison. Between 1939 and 1942, this prison held some 3000 persons, most of whom had been summarily judged in military courts and sentenced to between 6 and 30 years of imprisonment, or the death penalty. Until 1942, this prison was located in the Diocesan Seminary, and it is calculated that there were 2145 men held here in 1940. At first, female prisoners lived in a special room in the choir of the seminary church. However, they were soon transferred to the Adoration convent in the Eixample district of Girona, which then became the women's central prison, holding 1416 female prisoners at the end of 1940. Between 1942 and 1967, the men's prison was located in the convent of the Poor Clare nuns in Salt.