Pepita Laguarda Batet

Pepita Laguarda Batet (1919–1936), was a teenage Catalan girl and anarchist militia member who fought on the Aragon front during the Spanish Civil War. She was incorporated into the libertarian ranks without having yet reached adulthood and died in Uesca at the age of seventeen. She was the youngest soldier to die in combat during the war.

Biography Born in Barcelona, Pepita Laguarda lived in the L'Hospitalet de Llobregat district of with her parents and three brothers. Her mother, Matilde Batet, was a working-class member of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) and introduced her to anarchist ideas.

When the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, she signed up as a nurse at a hospital in Sarrià. She soon learned that volunteers were being recruited to fight in the combat zones. She decided to enlist, against the advice of her father, Her condition meant she had to be taken to Granyén hospital, where she died at 9.30am, in the arms of her companion.

Juan informed Solidaridad Obrera of her death, deeply moved by the death of his first love. He wrote about his relationship with Pepita in his autobiography, published in France in 1995.