Brigade volunteers from all over the world were imprisoned at Castelldefels, usually for deserting although also due to indiscipline, for their political ideas or for having committed a crime.
Logically there were many different stories...
- Jean Dryja, a volunteer from Slovakia born in 1906, fell in love with a young girl from the town and married her in a civil ceremony. When the order came to withdraw in January 1939, he had to abandon her against the will of both of them. She was pregnant. He could never go back to Castelldefels. In spite of the effect the ups and downs of a war-torn Europe had on his life in the following years, he always remembered his Rosa, his daughter (who continued to live in our town), to whom he tried to send money regularly until he died.
- Paul Wirta was born in Finland in 1907 but lived in Aberdeen (USA). He was a merchant seaman and trade unionist and, on 3 November, he enlisted in the Lincoln battalion. He fought at Belchite, Caspe or the Ebro between 12 February and 29 July 1938, when he was injured in his left hand. He was possibly arrested as a deserter afterwards and imprisoned at Castelldefels, finally returning to the United States on 20 December. As with many other Brigade volunteers, in 1957 he was investigated by the Un-American Activities Committee for his possible relations with the Soviet Union.
- Henri Lamotte was born in France in 1902 and, after three months at the front, deserted and was arrested and detained first in Chinchilla, then being transferred to Castelldefels in 1938. He was behind many of the drawings that can be seen in the castle chapel.
- Antonio Stoffella, an Italian who had emigrated to France, is another of the authors behind the extensive graffiti conserved in the chapel.
- Poul Erik Dreyer, a Dane born in 1908, was captured as a deserter in May 1938 and witnessed the tortures at Castelldefels, which he published in a book after he was released.
- Alex Marcovitch was a Jew born in the United Kingdom in 1914. He enlisted in the Brigade in 1937 and soon started to criticised how it operated, being arrested at the end of June 1938 for having fallen asleep on guard duty. After being in a disciplinary company, on 8 July he was sent to Castelldefels castle for six weeks. He was finally repatriated in January 1939.
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