Spanish Civil War Memory Project

Summary

Gallego was born on October 28, 1913 in Madrid. Her father was an anarchist who went into hiding in Andalusia, later dying during the Civil War. She recalls seeing her father only once when she was eight years old. Gallego was raised by her mother and grandmother. She started to "militar" in 1935, and worked as a hospital nurse during the Spanish Civil War. After being denounced by a falangist, she was incarcerated on April 14, 1939, along with her mother and her grandmother. Gallego describes the horrible conditions of overcrowded female prisons under the Francoist era, which she experienced firsthand. Upon release she moved to Andalusia and then later to Barcelona in the 1960s, where she resumed work as a nurse, finally retiring at age 70