Spanish Civil War 1936–1939
Valdenoceda prison memorial
Repression & memory site
The story
In an old silk factory in the Valdivielso valley north of Burgos, the Franco regime ran a prison for Republican prisoners, many transferred from other jails and from the Northern front. Cold, hunger and disease killed 153 inmates between 1938 and 1943, and they were buried in the village cemetery. The victims' association counts 154, adding a man killed at Valdenoceda in 1936 before the prison opened. From 2007 the association exhumed 114 bodies and identified many of them, making it one of the best-documented cases of prison mortality in Franco's Spain.
What you can see today
The shell of the factory-prison beside the Ebro, and the cemetery with memorial for the prisoners.
Plan your visit
Small village on the N-232 about 1 h from Burgos; building exterior only; cemetery accessible.
Sources
Nearby sites
- Puerto del Escudo – Italian memorial · 31 km
- Miranda de Ebro concentration camp (historic site) · 57 km
- Palacio de la Isla, Burgos (Franco HQ) · 58 km
- San Pedro de Cardeña monastery (International Brigades camp) · 61 km
- Santander air-raid shelter (Refugio Antiaéreo) · 70 km
- Artxanda – Iron Belt trenches & memorial · 72 km
All 158 sites in Spanish Civil War 1936–1939 →
The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939
A free field guide for your phone: the route, the maps and the stories built in, even with no signal. The battlefields, trenches, ruined villages, shelters, museums and memorials of the Spanish Civil War across the whole of Spain, told fairly from both sides.
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