Spanish Civil War Memory Project

Summary

Concha Carretero was born in Barcelona in 1918. Concha recounts that when she was two years old her family moved to Madrid, when she was six years old her father died, and when she was eleven years old she began working. She details that in the 1930s her brothers organized the Milicias Antifascistas Obreras y Campesinas (Anti-Fascist Laborer and Peasant Militia), a clandestine youth group dedicated to culture and politics, which later became the Juventudes Comunistas (Communist Youth), and in 1936 the Juventudes Socialistas Unificadas (Unified Socialist Youth). Concha describes her participation in the group, especially during the Civil War. She highlights that she was the first woman to work in the industry that fabricated war materials. Concha recalls that at the end of the war she attempted to reclaim the archives of the Juventudes Socialistas Unificadas, an act for which she was tortured for three months and then was sent to the Las Ventas women's prison. She tells of the assassination of the Trece Rosas (Thirteen Roses)--thirteen young women who were held in Ventas and were executed along with forty-two [sic] young men in 1939. Concha relates that in 1941, she was detained a second time in Ventas for a year and was kept in solitary confinement for four months. At the end of the interview, Concha sings songs of the Spanish Resistance