Antoni Rubinat Susagna

At home every­one called him Ton. He was born in Al­me­nar on Jan­u­ary 29, 1908, in Cal Torero, but a few years later his fam­ily moved to the An­tius tex­tile com­mu­nity (Callús, Bages), where Maria, the youngest daugh­ter, was born.

The whole fam­ily, the two par­ents and seven sib­lings, worked in the tex­tile fac­to­ries in the area. Ton mar­ried a girl who also worked and lived in the tex­tile com­mu­nity and they had two chil­dren. Ton’s in­volve­ment with the man­u­fac­tur­ing en­vi­ron­ment went be­yond his labour ties and led him to en­gage in po­lit­i­cal and union com­mit­ments. When the Civil War broke out in July 1936, he was af­fil­i­ated with the FAI (the Iber­ian An­ar­chist Fed­er­a­tion). It is thought that dur­ing the last days of the final of­fen­sive on Cat­alo­nia, at the end of Jan­u­ary and be­gin­ning of Feb­ru­ary 1939, Ton and some other com­rades crossed the bor­der into exile in France.

His fam­ily heard noth­ing more from him, just some news that placed him in one of the French camps on the beaches, but with­out any specifics. For years, his wife and sib­lings tried to find out what had be­come of him with­out get­ting an an­swer. Ton died in the Bram Camp (Aude de­part­ment) on May 23, 1939, at the age of 31. His sis­ter Maria died just two years ago with­out know­ing where her brother had died or been buried.