Lucha tras las rejas franquistas. La prisión central de mujeres de Segovia

Abstract

A Panopticon building opened in 1924 as a Women’s Reformatory, it subsequently became the Penitentiary Hospital for the elderly and TB patients. With the Civil War, it was crowded with political prisoners, who would not leave the building throughout the dictatorship. It became the Central Women’s Prison in 1946 and, during its ten years of existence, held the largest contingent of Spanish anti- Franco women fighters, who turned the prison into a clandestine political and cultural training centre. The role Burgos prison played for its male political prisoners, Segovia played for their female counterparts. Their organizational momentum grew and they maintained networks of solidarity which led to the calling of a hunger strike in January 1949. Although this showdown with the authorities of repression brought them severe punishment, the female inmates defended their dignity and their identity as political prisoners. From the late sixties, the building again held anti-Franco militants belonging to political and union organizations.