Spanish Civil War Memory Project

Summary

Pere Fortuny i Velázquez was born in 1933 in Mollet del Vallès. Pere recounts that his father, a member of the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Republican Left of Catalonia), acted as advisor and mayor of Mollet between 1933 and 1939. He recalls that before the Francoist troops entered Mollet in 1939, his family escaped toward France. Upon reaching the French border, Pere's father continued alone. The rest of the family stayed near the border, then moved to Badalona. Pere relates that during their absence the town priest occupied their house and business, robbing them of many of their possessions. When they returned, the priest did not allow them to move back into their home. Pere's father returned to Spain and was detained in a concentration camp in León and subsequently in Barcelona's Modelo Prison. He describes how the priest intervened in his father's execution, prohibiting the town's people from signing a petition to commute the death sentence. Pere explains that the priest did not allow him and his sister to attend public school and prohibited the town's people from selling food to his family. Pere discusses his role as co-founder of L'Associació pro Memòria als Immolats per la Llibertat a Catalunya (the association for the memory of those sacrificed for the liberty of Catalonia) and his current efforts toward the recuperation of historical memory