Since 2023, Spain officially celebrates the Day of remembrance and tribute to all the victims of the civil war and the Franco dictatorship on 31 October.

After being postponed due to the tragedy of the floods in Valencia, it finally took place on 10 December in Madrid.

Among those remembered and honoured, was Carmen Hombre Ponzoa, a Protestant teacher and trade unionist from Jerez de la Frontera, a city in the south of Spain.

Carmen Hombre Ponzoa has a street called after her in Jerez, and for the last six years the Evangelical Council of Andalusia gave a prize in her honour, to highlight the educational work of entities, historian Antonio Simoni explained to Spanish news website Protestante Digital.

First time

This is the first time that an official tribute to the victims of the dictatorship and the war has acknowledged the repression of a person for his evangelical faith.

It has been promoted mainly by Fernando Martínez López, the Secretary of State for democratic memory, who recently participated in a training course on memory and Protestantism, organised by the Spanish Evangelical Alliance and the Faculty of Theology of the Assemblies of God in La Carlota (Córdoba).

The event was attended by the President of the government, Pedro Sánchez, the minister of territorial policy and democratic memory, Ángel Víctor Torres, and the First Vice-President of the government, María Jesús Montero, in the presence of other ministers and authorities.

Protestant teacher

Carmen Hombre Ponzoa was a teacher born on 30 December 1903. She taught in several schools in the Jerez area. She was Protestant and politically active as a trade unionist.

In those years, the Republic had expanded its educational presence through schools throughout the country. However, that initiative was cut short by fear and repression in 1936.

The teacher was arrested along with her husband, Juan Máximo Salazar, a teacher in the Federation of Teaching workers.

Carmen was held in prison until she was shot in August 1936, when she was eight months pregnant. Her husband was also shot.

Only her one-year-old son survived, as he was rescued and secretly handed over to her sister.

Some lines of investigation claim that the reason for her murder had mainly to do with her religious beliefs. Repression continued against her family, who had their property seized.

The repression of evangelicals by Franco’s regime

Evangelicals were one of the religious groups that suffered the repression of Franco’s regime.

In addition to arrests and executions such as that suffered by Carmen Hombre and her husband, or the well-known case of the pastor Atilano Coco, a friend of the famous author Miguel de Unamuno, for several decades freedom of worship and expression was limited, evangelical schools were closed, property was seized and there was discrimination that also led many Protestants to go into exile.