The search for the remains of Pablo de la Torriente Brau began at Barcelona Cemetery

May 1, 2021

With a symbolic act at the Montjuic Cemetery in Barcelona, excavation work began to locate the bone remains of Pablo de la Torriente Brau in that burial ground.

According to a note from Cuba's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, published on its website (Cubaminrex), the work is part of an action program aimed at identifying, recovering, and transferring to Cuba the remains of the internationalist combatant, as was his expressed wish in the face of the possibility of death in Spain.

The Collaboration Agreement was signed in 2018 between the Department of Justice of the Catalan government, the Barcelona City Council, and the General Consulate of Cuba, and since then close communication has been maintained between the parties.

During the act, the Cuban General Consul in Barcelona, Alain González González, highlighted the history of Pablo de la Torriente and his legacy as essential for the Greater Antilles.

Among the participants were also the Counselor of Justice of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Ester Capella, the councilor of Citizenship and Participation of the Barcelona City Council, Marc Serra, and the secretary of the Amical of the International Brigades of Catalonia, Eduard Amouroux.

Born in Puerto Rico in 1901, the writer and journalist was one of more than a thousand volunteers from Cuba who joined the struggle against fascism, and died fighting on the Madrid Front on December 19, 1936.

The body was rescued between enemy lines and buried in the Madrid cemetery of Chamartín with the insignias of captain of Militias; but in 1937 it was transferred to Montjuic in Barcelona, with the purpose of returning it to the Greater Antilles, which could not be accomplished after the defeat of the republican forces.

According to the registry of the Barcelona necropolis, it was removed from the niche and placed in an unspecified grave, located by the investigation based on information provided by Zoe de la Torriente, Pablo's sister, who in 2009 delivered a hair sample that he had given her shortly before his departure.