A portable toilet placed in the moat of Montjuïc Castle, on the exact spot where Lluís Companys, President of Catalonia, was executed in 1940, was swiftly removed following public complaint. Municipal sources confirmed the facility, intended for construction workers, had been positioned at the sensitive memorial site “by mistake”; all materials have since been relocated.
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The issue came to light on the morning of 16 March, when an Hostafrancs neighbourhood resident photographed the portable toilet next to the monolith marking the execution site. The image was sent to local station Ràdio Hostafrancs and quickly generated significant online unease, prompting an immediate response from Barcelona City Council.
In a statement provided to Tot Barcelona, a district spokesperson acknowledged the error. “The toilet has already been removed, and all storage of construction materials will now occur in another area, away from the Lluís Companys memorial,” the official certified.
A Site of Solemn Remembrance
The location in the Santa Eulàlia moat of Montjuïc Castle holds profound significance in modern Catalan history. It was here, on 15 October 1940, that Lluís Companys i Jover, the 123rd President of the Generalitat de Catalunya, was executed by a Francoist firing squad following the end of the Spanish Civil War. He remains the only incumbent, democratically elected president in European history to have been executed.
Each year, solemn remembrance ceremonies, organised by the Memorial Democràtic and the Associació Pro-memòria als Immolats per la Llibertat a Catalunya, focus on the site. These events honour not only Companys but also the more than 1,700 other republicans executed in Barcelona for political and ideological reasons during the Franco dictatorship.
The works necessitating the temporary facilities are part of a Barcelona City Council project to review and maintain groundwater piping within the castle grounds. This is just one of several projects transforming the hill, which will also undergo a major revamp of its fairgrounds for the 2029 centenary.
Wider Concerns Over Memorial Maintenance
While the council’s response to this specific incident was swift, it has drawn attention to broader concerns from historical memory associations regarding the upkeep of the city’s memorial sites. A similar controversy has repeatedly surfaced around the Fossar de les Moreres in the Born district, a burial ground for those who died defending the city during the Siege of Barcelona in 1714.
Campaign groups have on several occasions denounced what they describe as a “complete lack of interest” from the council in maintaining the site. The eternal flame at the memorial has repeatedly gone out in recent years, with the council citing “electrical reasons” for the most recent outage in October 2023. In previous administrations, the use of the adjacent square for cultural exhibitions also drew the ire of memorial associations, who felt it disrespected the solemnity of the location.
The inadvertent placement of the toilet at the Companys memorial, though quickly rectified, serves as a stark reminder of the delicate balance between daily municipal operations and the preservation of historical dignity. Practical needs, such as providing facilities for workers, are essential, as highlighted by the public toilet crisis in nearby Badalona. However, this incident underscores the need for greater sensitivity and oversight when work is undertaken at sites of such profound historical and emotional weight.
