Joaquina Dorado Pita
Born in A Coruña, her family moved to Barcelona in 1934. Joaquina Dorado Pita was a member of CNT, Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (National Confederation of Labour) and FIJL, Federación Ibérica de las Juventudes Libertarias (Iberian Federation of Libertarian Youth). She was actively involved in the collectivisation process of the timber industry during the Civil War in Barcelona.
After her exile in France where she was confined to several internment camps (Briançon, Recebidoux), she returned to Spain in 1946 to fight against the dictatorship as a member of the MLR, Movimiento Libertario de Resistencia ( Libertarian Resistance Movement). Arrested in 1948, she spent 18 days in the cells of the Jefatura Superior (the Francoist police headquarters) in Via Laietana, where she was tortured. On the 15th of March, she entered Les Corts prison. There she met other fellow anarcho-syndicalists such as Rosa Mateu- Enriqueta Borràs’s mother-, Francisca Avellanet and Antonia Martínez.
Tried and sentenced to 15 years on conviction for ‘aiding the rebellion’, she spent a total of 3 years at Les Corts on two separate occasions. She provided economic support to her parents and her partner, Liberto Sarrau, by working in prison as a seamstress.
In 1956 she managed to sneak into France, where she lived until her return in 2006 when she settled in Barcelona. On 1 March 2007, along with 30 other Galician women –Mulleres con Memoria (Women who Remember)- she was paid homage by the Xunta de Galicia (the Galician government) in Santiago de Compostela. Her lecture on July 19 2008 was recorded at this link.
Also in 2007, the band LABOCA composed a series of hip-hop music tracks based on testimonies of women imprisoned in Les Corts, among them that of Joaquina (Les Corts.1948), working with chords from the most popular songs and couplets of both eras, like ¡Ay mi sombrero!
Joaquina died on 14 March 2017 aged 99. On the occasion of the tribute paid to her in June in Barcelona, her friend the writer Antonina Rodrigo delivered the farewell speech ‘Joaquina Dorado Pita. The incorruptible one’.
