Families of prisoners held at the Francoist penal on San Simón and San Antón have received official recognition more than eight decades after the prison closed. Relatives and Redondela residents gathered on Thursday to honour those imprisoned there and remember the women who helped them at personal risk. The ceremony included the unveiling of a plaque recognising the islands as a Lugar de Memoria Democrática.
Fernando Martínez, the Secretary of State for Democratic Memory, led the event. The Ministry of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory organised it with Redondela City Council. RTVE journalist Xabier Fortes presented the ceremony. Representatives of the memorial movement attended. Writer and journalist Manuel Rivas and poet Olga Novo were also there.
The families also criticised the delay. Ana Belén Moreda said the recognition had come half a century late. She recalled her great-grandfather Alfonso Moreda Vázquez. The Moreda family faced extensive repression in Vigo because of its left-wing and republican militancy. After being held at San Simón, Alfonso was transferred to Burgos and executed.
For other relatives, the delay was painful, but it did not erase the value of the ceremony. Román Santalla Agra remembered his grandfather Jaime Agra Blanco and two brothers who passed through the prison. He said they were democratic people who were condemned and abused without justification.
San Simón and San Antón lie in the Vigo estuary and belong to Redondela. They were used as a prison during the Civil War and the first years of Francoism. The facility was meant to be temporary, but operated from October 1936 until 15 March 1943.
More than 5,600 prisoners passed through the penal. Over 500 died as overcrowding and food shortages made conditions appalling. San Simón held the prisoner barracks. San Antón contained the guards' military quarters and the cemetery. A small bridge connects the two islands.
The women who supported the prisoners are remembered as madriñas or lavandeiras. Rosario Bautista said her father, Alfredo Bautista Alconero, spent four years in prison. He met his future wife at San Simón, where she was one of the women who helped the detainees.
The ceremony also brought Declarations of Recognition and Reparation to the families. Readers may recall the earlier report on secrecy and shifting loyalties in La Promesa. This case is different. It concerns the public record of state repression and the people who endured it.
Martínez used the ceremony to call for vigilance against historical distortions, including lies and hoaxes. He linked that vigilance to the defence of democracy and freedoms. He also said the government would work with Redondela to protect the site's purpose. EFE reported his remarks.
Mayor Digna Rivas said the Lugar de Memoria Democrática designation should regulate events held on the islands. That gives the official status a practical effect: activities at the site are expected to respect its historical meaning.
The plaque cannot repair the years that were lost. The ceremony establishes a public duty that should have been met much earlier: preserve the facts and honour those who suffered, so the site retains its democratic meaning.
