I’ve walked by this statue a bunch of times, and today I realized I now know who it is and what his story is. He was the president of the Generalitat of Catalunya during the Spanish Civil War - notttt an easy job given the social revolution, Catalan nationalism and fervent anti-Franco stance. Anyway, when Catalunya fell to Franco’s forces, the president, Lluis Companys, fled to France after securing the safety of Catalan artists, intellectuals, politicians, etc. THEN Franco found him in France (well, his people), dragged him back to Barcelona and executed him publicly on Montjuic. Ay Dios mio, this guy does deserve a statue and a street named after him.
