A childhood marked by tragedy
At just six years old, Dolors Granell witnessed how the soldiers of the Franco regime executed his father, Joan Granell, on the Mount of Olives in Tarragona, on August 24, 1940. Joan Granell was one of the 690 people sentenced to death in the demarcation. From this Thursday, an exhibition pays tribute to them in the old penitentiary center of the city.
Resignification of historical spaces
Following the example of La Model prison in Barcelona, which in 2016 closed its doors as a penitentiary center to later become a civic facility, the old prison in Tarragona will maintain the same spirit and the same will. This has been assured by the Minister of Justice, Rights and Memory, Gemma Ubasart, coinciding with the opening of the exhibition ‘The prisons of Franco’s repression in Tarragona’.
A symbolic act of resignation
For Ubasart, the exhibition becomes ‘a symbolic act of resignation’ of a space that was one of the main scenes of Franco’s repression in the city, at the same time that it ‘dignifies the democratic memory of Tarragona and of the demarcation as a whole ‘.
Tribute to the victims
The exhibition wants to pay tribute to all the people who suffered from Franco’s repression and put the emphasis on those who were tried without procedural guarantees, locked up in prisons and executed. Among them is Joan Granell, a resident of Cambrils who was shot following a very summary procedure in 1940.
Preserving historical memory
The exhibition shows how prisoners lived in the different prisons that Tarragona had, from the one known as the Pilats prison, to the current exhibition site, built by hundreds of republican soldiers subjected to forced labor and inaugurated in 1953.
Reconversion of the space
During April 2023, the Territorial Services of the Department of Justice located their headquarters in the old penitentiary center of the city, after the last prisoners were moved to the new Open Penitentiary Center of Tarragona. The old Tarragona prison has hosted different cultural activities and it is expected that it will continue to be a space of historical, cultural and memory interest.