Labor Camp Number 4, returned to sender, 1938

Cover addressed to a guard in Labor Camp Number 4 of the S.I.M. The addressee is Plácido Mor Font. Sent through air mail from Carcassonne, France, with postmark dated on November 10, 1938. Barcelona arrival backstamp of November 16, 1938.

Upon arrival the letter is censored, with tape and civilian censor mark Heller RB3.13.

The complete address is as follows:

Plácido Mor Font

Guardia

Campo de Trabajo nº 4

Montjuich

Barcelona

Republique Espagnole

The censor tape partially hides the word "Guardia" in the address, what caused the confussion that finally made the cover to be returned to sender, as we will see later.

The cover is directed to the coded address of the labour camps, the S.I.M. offices in Montjuic, from where it should have been redirected to the camp number 4, in Concabella. On the back, handwritten with pen, a redirection to Muntaner 55 was noted, to the headquarters of the S.I.M. (see Francesc Badia's book, page 144). This redirection was signed by M. Sánchez. This forward appears cancelled by pencil, and just below there is the same redirection reordered, now authorized by the signature "Brotons".

In the S.I.M headquarters the mark "SÓLO SE ADMITEN / TARJETAS POSTALES CON / 20 PALABRAS DE TEXTO" was stamped (only admitted post cards with text of 20 words), and a "D" for "devolution". Undoubtedly, the parcial hidding of the word "Guardia" in the address by the civilian censor tape made the clerk to think it was a cover addressed to a prisoner, and he followed the norm that only allowed the prisoners to receive post cards with a text with a maximum lenght of 20 words. This rule was not allways followed so strictly, as proved by the covers int he lot CT011.

The sender is Marcel Delpech, 6 Rue Montpellier, Carcassonne (Aude), France.

Unique cover known to exist addressed to a guard in the S.I.M. labor camps.