José Gonzaga Herrera

Andalusia labourer and anarcho-syndicalist, who joined the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) in 1929. A machinegunner during the Civil War, he fought for the Pedro Rubio Battalion in the Castuera area and was a defender during the seige of Madrid at the Ciutat Universitària, gaining the rank of seargenat in the Republican Army. With Franco's victory, he returned to his village where he was arrested and imprisoned. Court-martial, he was sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted after a year to 30 years in prison. Between 1942 and 1944 he was one of the 2,000 political prisoners working as slave labour on the digging of the Canal del Baix Guadalquivir aka Canal de los Presos (Canal of Prisoners) under Franco's Redención de Penas por el Trabajo policy. Caught with barley, from which prisoners made a coffee substitute, he was imprisoned in Sevilla and worked raising rabbits.

In total, he spent 13 years, 3 months and 3 days, in prison and was released on August 6, 1952. He returned to his home village Constantina, but threats from the local Falange forced him to move to Madrid. After the death of Franco, he returned to Constantina and was reinstated as a seargent in the army, receiving compensation as a prisoner of 1,600,000 pesetas.