Members of the Comissió per la Dignitat, a civic memory group, held a floral tribute at the memorial stele in El Gurugú Park, Guadarrama, on 6 August, 90 years after Josep Sunyol i Garriga was shot by a Francoist squad.

For FC Barcelona supporters and Catalan residents, the commemoration preserves the public record of a former club president whose remains, and those of the three men travelling with him, have not been recovered. According to reporting by FC Barcelona, the club also marked the anniversary on its social media channels.

Sunyol was a Republican deputy in the Spanish parliament from 1931 to 1933 and president of FC Barcelona. He was travelling near the front at the start of the Spanish Civil War when he and his companions were detained at kilometre 52 of the N-6 road, according to El Nacional.

Four people were killed near the N-6

The people shot in Guadarrama were:

  • Josep Sunyol i Garriga, FC Barcelona president and Republican deputy;
  • Pere Ventura i Virgili, a sports journalist at Sunyol's newspaper, La Rambla;
  • the vehicle's driver; and
  • a Republican Army lieutenant accompanying the group.

Actor Nan Valentí performed a reconstruction of the detention during the gathering. Elena Fort, FC Barcelona's institutional vice-president, attended alongside representatives of Amics de Josep Sunyol and the history magazine Sàpiens.

Search for the burial site remains blocked

Toni Strubell Trueta of the Comissió per la Dignitat said the anniversary required a public response to the killings and to the continuing absence of the victims' remains.

“No amount of gratitude can be enough for the example those Catalan Republicans gave us in their opposition to Francoism and fascism.”

El Nacional reported that attempts to locate and recover the bodies remain barred by Spain's Ministry of Defence. Spain's Democratic Memory Law, in force since 2022, provides for reparative measures for victims of the Civil War and Franco dictatorship.

The tribute was held at the stele in El Gurugú Park, at the site where Sunyol and the other three men were shot.

Reported by Mayte Piulachs, Marc Pons, fcbarcelona.com, Jordi Palmer, passerell, Pau Rodríguez, vilaweb.cat, Nació Digital, larazon.es, ikidata.org, theglobeandmail.com, Racó Català.