Patronato: My mum was a 17-year-old free spirit in Franco’s Spain

[ad_1] Linda Pressly and

Esperanza Escribano, Barcelona

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/aec2/live/cbf26310-c15b-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/aec2/live/cbf26310-c15b-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/aec2/live/cbf26310-c15b-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/aec2/live/cbf26310-c15b-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/aec2/live/cbf26310-c15b-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/aec2/live/cbf26310-c15b-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/aec2/live/cbf26310-c15b-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/aec2/live/cbf26310-c15b-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp" loading="eager" alt="BBC Mariona as a young woman" class="sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA"/> BBC Marina Freixa at all times knew there was one thing darkish and unstated about her household.

Her mom had grown up below Spain's decades-long dictatorship, which resulted in 1975, however the particulars of her childhood have been hazy.

Then every little thing modified one Christmas a decade in the past - when Marina was about 20.

That winter's night across the desk, with a cloud of cigarette smoke suspended within the air and wine glasses drained, Marina's mom, Mariona Roca Tort, started to talk.

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/f292/live/effeee70-c158-11f0-8669-5560f5c90fbe.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/f292/live/effeee70-c158-11f0-8669-5560f5c90fbe.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/f292/live/effeee70-c158-11f0-8669-5560f5c90fbe.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/f292/live/effeee70-c158-11f0-8669-5560f5c90fbe.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/f292/live/effeee70-c158-11f0-8669-5560f5c90fbe.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/f292/live/effeee70-c158-11f0-8669-5560f5c90fbe.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/f292/live/effeee70-c158-11f0-8669-5560f5c90fbe.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/f292/live/effeee70-c158-11f0-8669-5560f5c90fbe.jpg.webp" loading="lazy" alt="Els Buits (documentary film) Marina Freixa, right and her mother Mariona" class="sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA"/> Els Buits (documentary movie) A number of years in the past, Mariona (left) revealed the reality about her adolescence to Marina and her cousins

"My mother and father reported me to the authorities," Mariona advised them. "They put me in a reformatory after I was 17."

Reformatories have been establishments the place ladies and younger ladies who refused to adapt to the Franco regime's Catholic values have been detained - single moms, ladies with boyfriends, lesbians. Ladies who'd been sexually assaulted have been incarcerated, assuming the blame for their very own abuse. Orphans and deserted ladies may also discover themselves dwelling behind convent partitions.

Marina and her cousins have been surprised.

They could not comprehend that their grandparents had organized to have their very own daughter locked up.

Mariona's reminiscence of telling this story to the children in her household is blurred, she believes on account of the psychiatric "remedy" she was compelled to endure on the reformatory. However Marina did not neglect the revelations, and years later, she would make a documentary telling her mom's story.

Mariona is a survivor of the Patronato de Protección a la Mujer - the Ladies's Safety Board. Below dictator Francisco Franco, it oversaw a nationwide community of residential establishments managed by non secular organisations. There isn't any definitive details about what number of establishments have been concerned or what number of ladies have been affected.

Thursday will mark 50 years since Franco's dying. Spain has since seen a revolution in ladies's rights - however survivors of the Patronato are nonetheless ready for solutions and are actually demanding an inquiry.

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/0629/live/b588ce50-c158-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/0629/live/b588ce50-c158-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/0629/live/b588ce50-c158-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/0629/live/b588ce50-c158-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/0629/live/b588ce50-c158-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/0629/live/b588ce50-c158-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/0629/live/b588ce50-c158-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/0629/live/b588ce50-c158-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp" loading="lazy" alt="Family handout A black-and-white picture of a young Mariona, a girl with dark hair looking down" class="sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA"/> Household handout As a youngster, Mariona encountered folks resisting the Spanish dictatorship

Warning: This text incorporates content material that some readers would possibly discover distressing

Mariona, the oldest of 9 siblings, describes her mother and father as right-wing and ultra-Catholic. They have been so conservative they would not even let Mariona put on trousers.

However in 1968, when she turned 16, a brand new world unfolded.

Mariona was tutoring kids in the course of the day, and getting ready for college at night lessons. There, she says, she met folks she'd by no means encountered earlier than - commerce unionists, left-wingers and anti-Franco activists. It was the yr of worldwide protests towards authoritarianism and the Vietnam Warfare, with mass calls for for civil rights. The spirit of revolt was infectious.

Franco had been in energy for 3 a long time. Political events have been banned, censorship was common and younger folks needed change. Quickly, Mariona joined her new pals on "raids": a couple of of them would block off a avenue, throw Molotov cocktails, hand out leaflets, and when the police turned up, scatter in each route.

On Could Day 1969, considered one of Mariona's pals was arrested at an illustration in Barcelona. There was a threat the detainee would give names to the police - so Mariona could not go dwelling, in case they got here in search of her. That night time she stayed within the flat of a fellow activist.

Returning dwelling the subsequent day, Mariona was in serious trouble. Her mother and father have been livid, and commenced to exert much more management over her life.

"For them, it was a scandal, a stain on the household," she says. "After that, they would not let me out."

By the top of that summer time, Mariona had resolved to go away dwelling, and travelled to the vacation island of Menorca with some faculty pals, leaving her mother and father a be aware.

They instantly reported her as an underage runaway to the authorities, and the second Mariona was about to board a ship again to Barcelona, she was arrested.

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/0485/live/eded73c0-c17d-11f0-8669-5560f5c90fbe.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/0485/live/eded73c0-c17d-11f0-8669-5560f5c90fbe.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/0485/live/eded73c0-c17d-11f0-8669-5560f5c90fbe.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/0485/live/eded73c0-c17d-11f0-8669-5560f5c90fbe.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/0485/live/eded73c0-c17d-11f0-8669-5560f5c90fbe.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/0485/live/eded73c0-c17d-11f0-8669-5560f5c90fbe.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/0485/live/eded73c0-c17d-11f0-8669-5560f5c90fbe.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/0485/live/eded73c0-c17d-11f0-8669-5560f5c90fbe.jpg.webp" loading="lazy" alt="Alamy Barcelona 1969" class="sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA"/> Alamy Mariona's escape from Barcelona in 1969 was short-lived

On the port in Barcelona her mother and father met her.

They did not take her dwelling. As a substitute, they took her to a convent. Mariona wasn't given any rationalization - she solely remembers her mother and father' rage.

Days later she flew to Madrid along with her father. There, she was pushed immediately to a different convent, a part of the Patronato system, below Spain's Ministry of Justice.

She and the opposite interned ladies have been categorised and segregated.

Mariona says she ended up on the primary flooring - reserved for "the rebellious ones - those they thought of fallen ladies".

The Patronato had the facility to detain any non-conforming girl below 25. They weren't criminals - they have been females deemed in want of "re-education". However Mariona by no means discovered the tales of the others she was confined with.

"They did not allow us to discuss. It is fairly unbelievable," she says. "And also you marvel, how did they handle it?"

The internees have been solely allowed to trade easy greetings with one another - a type of management, and a approach of stopping "unhealthy" ladies influencing others.

"What you could not do was actually get to know one other lady," says Mariona. "As a result of then they'd separate you - ship considered one of you to a unique dormitory, and even to a different establishment."

She thinks there have been round 100 internees on the convent. They slept 20 to a room, with a nun at one finish, and the door locked. The each day routine was gruelling - prayers, Mass, cleansing the convent, after which hours in a workshop making garments for native retailers. Whereas the ladies sewed, a nun learn aloud in order that no-one talked.

"There was indoctrination," recollects Mariona. "In order that you must perceive you'd behaved very badly. Then when you realised this, you'd say sorry and confess."

Mariona by no means confessed.

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/d1ac/live/81243810-c159-11f0-8456-eff94716b162.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/d1ac/live/81243810-c159-11f0-8456-eff94716b162.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/d1ac/live/81243810-c159-11f0-8456-eff94716b162.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/d1ac/live/81243810-c159-11f0-8456-eff94716b162.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/d1ac/live/81243810-c159-11f0-8456-eff94716b162.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/d1ac/live/81243810-c159-11f0-8456-eff94716b162.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/d1ac/live/81243810-c159-11f0-8456-eff94716b162.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/d1ac/live/81243810-c159-11f0-8456-eff94716b162.jpg.webp" loading="lazy" alt="Marina Freixa Mariona's diary open on the entry page for 13th July" class="sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA"/> Marina Freixa In her diary, Mariona wrote: "Father says I have to select. Stay a correct household life, or go away dwelling eternally."

After round 4 months, she was allowed to return dwelling to Barcelona for Christmas, however wasn't permitted to exit alone. By some means - and Mariona would not bear in mind how - she managed to flee, however her escape was quick lived. Inside hours she was bundled right into a automobile along with her father and an uncle, and pushed again to Madrid.

"We arrived again on the convent at nightfall," she recollects. "I refused to go in. They pulled me up the steps and gave me a sedative to get me inside."

Contained in the convent, the opposite younger ladies have been warned towards speaking to her - the insurgent lady who had the nerve to attempt to run away. She grew intensely lonely, and ultimately started refusing meals.

Dramatic weight reduction resulted in her admission to a psychiatric clinic. There, she says she was given two periods of electrical shock remedy, adopted by what was known as "insulin coma remedy".

Mariona says she was injected with insulin to induce deep hypoglycemia - a coma-like state brought on by low blood sugar. It was believed this might scale back psychotic or schizophrenic signs, and in some way "re-set" a affected person's mind.

It was a "remedy" that was being discontinued in lots of nations for one easy motive: it could possibly be deadly.

Mariona acquired an insulin injection within the mornings. Later she'd be introduced out of the coma and made to eat. Mentally, she started to close down.

"On a regular basis, I used to be extra dazed. I began saying issues like, 'I damage my mother and father,'" she says.

"I entered this means of submission and acceptance."

Mariona believes the compelled, intravenous "remedy" with insulin irreparably broken her reminiscence. Suspecting it was inflicting her to neglect issues, she started retaining a diary. Greater than 5 a long time later, this light, paper doc from 1971 would inform Marina's documentary about her mom's expertise.

Medical doctors believed the "remedy" would assist Mariona acquire weight - however that wasn't occurring.

"Someday, the psychiatrist determined it was higher to strive tying me to the mattress till I ate."

Mariona's despair grew to become so insufferable, she says she considered taking her personal life. Then the psychiatrist gave her a goal weight of 40kg (6st 4lb). If she achieved that, they promised she'd be launched from the clinic.

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/7c76/live/a4353a80-c158-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/7c76/live/a4353a80-c158-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/7c76/live/a4353a80-c158-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/7c76/live/a4353a80-c158-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/7c76/live/a4353a80-c158-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/7c76/live/a4353a80-c158-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/7c76/live/a4353a80-c158-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/7c76/live/a4353a80-c158-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp" loading="lazy" alt="Mariona Roca Tort Mariona" class="sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA"/> Mariona Roca Tort When Mariona was launched from the Patronato, she by no means returned to stay along with her mother and father once more

Mariona succeeded. In 1972, as soon as she'd grown just a little stronger, she returned to Barcelona.

Now aged 20, she vowed to by no means stay along with her mother and father once more.

These have been the ultimate years of Franco's dictatorship earlier than his dying in 1975. Mariona moved from job to job, ultimately forging a profession as a TV director. She had kids of her personal, however her relationship along with her mother and father remained cool.

Sooner or later, Mariona requested her mom why she'd been despatched to the Patronato. Her mom solely mentioned: "We made a mistake."

Mariona's father is in his 90s now.

"We suffered so much too," he advised her when she requested him in regards to the household determination to have her locked up in Madrid.

For Marina, studying extra about her mom's story has sophisticated her relationship along with her grandfather.

"I can not power myself to like somebody who's precipitated a lot ache - who handled my mom very badly."

The quick documentary Marina produced about her mom's expertise of the Patronato is known as Els Buits - Catalan for "the areas" - a reference to the blanks in Mariona's reminiscence. The movie has received prizes in Spain, and was nominated for a prestigious Goya Award.

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/05b1/live/5463eb90-c159-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/05b1/live/5463eb90-c159-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/05b1/live/5463eb90-c159-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/05b1/live/5463eb90-c159-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/05b1/live/5463eb90-c159-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/05b1/live/5463eb90-c159-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/05b1/live/5463eb90-c159-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/05b1/live/5463eb90-c159-11f0-ae46-bd64331f0fd4.jpg.webp" loading="lazy" alt="Esperanza Escribano Marina Freixa, right and her mother Mariona" class="sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA"/> Esperanza Escribano Mariona and Marina are touring with the documentary movie, which Marina believes exhibits the establishments have been a "systematic" a part of Spain's historical past

Fifty years after the dying of Franco, the movie has contributed to a groundswell of requires the interned ladies to be formally recognised below the regulation as victims of Spain's dictatorship. Spain's Minister for Democratic Reminiscence, Ángel Víctor Torres, mentioned his authorities was open to wanting on the case of the Patronato survivors.

In the meantime, Marina and Mariona are on tour with the movie, taking it to neighborhood screenings.

"Ladies come and inform their tales – it is like a door opened to one thing unknown, and that is very highly effective," says Marina. "Individuals assume what occurred in their very own dwelling was an remoted incident. We attempt to say: this historical past is not particular person, it was systematic."