Stop 9 – Rearguard

“Los Almendros” Tower, Santa Llogaia Street, headquarters of the Republican Military Information Service (SIM), 1938 (BFC)

“In their yard they dug a shelter where […] the people of the neighbourhood went.” […] When we went inside in the middle of a bombing, people were praying, me too, and those in the Checa (Communist Paramilitary Police) […] said: “What are you doing?! Don’t pray!”

Oral testimony by C.F.C.

In the neighborhood of the Protestant houses, the Headquarters of the Military Information Service (SIM) was established between 1938 and 1939.

The SIM confiscated the house known as “Torre Los Almendros”, a medieval-looking building located on Ferrer i Guàrdia Street (currently Santa Llogaia Street). They built a shelter in their garden, and in their basement they set up the interrogation and detention rooms. People suspected of espionage were taken to the SIM prison in Figueres, before being transferred to Barcelona. 

Very close to that castle-tower converted into a prison, there was the Quinta Castellví, owned by pharmacist and amateur photographer Francesc Castellví. The Local Passive Defence Board took advantage of the plot in front of that estate to open, in 1937, one of its trenches. 

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