for the Spain they believed to be better: in Clariana

in Clariana de Cardener According to the project  El Solsonès, land of hide-outs / El Solsonès, terra d'emboscats, the Anti-aircraft refuge close to Can Joval in Clariana de Cardener was built by the Disciplinary Battalion n.5: “The fundamental task of the prisoners of the  disciplinarian Batalion company  n.5 (August 1938-January 1939) was the building of the anti-aircraft refuge –including the opening of the access road –which had to serve as a storage place for war material (guns and explosives). They also worked in three stone quarries of the area. The building of the refuge could be related to the bombings that Solsona suffered in June 1938. On that occasion, Franco supporters’ aircrafts were looking for the powder magazine of the Republic troops located by the road Solsona-Berga, but instead the bombs fell very close to the refugee’s shelter in the Solsona outskirts and caused the death of five people. The refuge has a small inner chamber with the typical classic structure in the shape of a gallery mine with two concrete entrances. The disciplinary battalions of the Republican Army were created after declaring the start of war in order to punish the criminal behaviors concerning military matters, such as dissertation or leaving the position at the front. In summer 1938 the four companies which constitute the Disciplinary Battalion n.5 from the East Army established themselves at Través House, Hortoneda, in the Can Joval forest and in the Santa Susanna Church. The commanders occupied the farmhouses of the area, such as Joval and Foncalguer. The prisoners built themselves the barrack huts in the middle of a field. “The military camp was about 40 meters long by 15 wide. It was surrounded by a thick barbed wire held with sticks about one meter and a half high. After there was an excavation two meters deep by two wide which surrounded the whole camp that the prisoners had built themselves. At each angle of this excavation there was a small hut for the guards with their riffles and at night they would alert the other sentinels " (S.Pujol, prisoner witness). Life conditions were very hard. Illnesses and mistreatments caused the death of about thirty people between August 1938 and January 1939-" These photos were taken in July 2018 and they show some exterior views of the anti-aircraft refuge and a view of  the field where the military camp was placed.