Labor Camp Number 4, Cervera, 1938
Reference: CT011
1938. Cover addressed to a prisoner in Labor Camp Number 4 of the S.I.M.
More info
Cover addressed to a prisoner in Labour Camp Nr 4 of the Servicio de Investigación Militaqr (S.I.M.). The addressee is Pepe Pascual Semis. This person appears in the list of inmates of the labour camps in Catalonia published in apendix 19 of the work "Els campos de treball a Catalunya durant la guerra civil (1936-1939)", by Francesc Badia (page 432).
The cover bears the mark "Se autoriza la circulación / por falta de franqueo" (circulation authorized for the lack of stamps) and the seal "Ajuntament de Tàrrega (Tàrrega town council seal). Letterhead cancelled with ink reading "Associació d'Empleats Municipals / (Adherida a la U.G.T.)" and Tàrrega postmark of July 1938.
The Labor Camp number 4 was active from May to December 1938.
The address of the addressee is "Camp de Treball Nº 4 / 3ª Secció, 1ª Companyia / Cervera". The labor camp number 4 was in Concabella, but in Cervera there was the hospital where the inmates with serious illnesses were moved to.
The addressee, Pepe Pascual Semis, was sentenced to "maxim reclusion" by the Tribunal Popular of Lleida (see La Vanguardia, October 1, 1936, page 7) and he survived to his imprisonment in the camp of the S.I.M. (he was appointed Asesor Provincial de Campamentos y Albergues in a notice in the bookled "Organizaciones Juveniles, nr 1, 1940).
The sender of the cover is Antoñita Sanfeliu, from Tàrrega.
Francesc Badia, in his work says that "even rarer than the mentioned post cards [for the cards the inmates in the S.I.M. labour camps were allowed to send monthly] are the examples of postal items circulated to inmates of the labour camps and received. I've never seen any. The poor living conditions of the prisoners and the vicissitudes they suffered untill they were liberated made very difficult the conservation of this kind of documents" (page 146).
The cover in this lot is one of the five known pieces received by prisoners in labor camps under S.I.M. rule (two in private collections and the other three offered in this collection: lots CT091, CT041 & CT011)