María de la Salud Paz Lozano Hernández was born on 11 October 1909, in Valladolid (Spain). Better known as ‘La Gitana’ [The Roma Woman], she was a prominent activist who was executed during the Francoist Dictatorship (1939–1975) in Spain. She was killed by a firing squad in Madrid on 19 January 1940, at the very beginning of the dictatorship, becoming one of the first women executed under Francisco Franco’s (1892–1975) regime.
Childhood and Adolescence
The only known facts about María Lozano’s early life are that she was born in Valladolid, a city with a significant Cale [Spanish: caló] presence, as was the case in other provinces of Castile. She was the daughter of Ramón Lozano (biographical data unknown) and Encarnación Hernández (biographical data unknown), but little else is known about her family. Based on ethnographic research and fieldwork in the region, it is plausible to assume that, like many other families in early twentieth-century Castile, hers may have been engaged in itinerant trades such as basket selling, handicrafts, or livestock dealing. What is certain is that, in adulthood María Lozano relocated to another part of Spain.
Political Activism
In April 1937, in Valencia, the non-governmental organisation Solidaridad Internacional Antifascista (SIA) [International Antifascist Solidarity] was founded, closely linked to the anarchist trade union Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) [National Confederation of Labour]. Both María Lozano and her husband, Florentino Salcedo Abascal (1904–1940), were active members of SIA, deeply convinced of the need to fight Fascism in Spain and prevent its expansion, as had already occurred elsewhere in Europe. Other Romani people also participated in this anarchist union, such as Mariano Rodríguez Vázquez (1909–1939), who became its general secretary in 1936.
During the Spanish Civil War, this organisation established branches in several cities, which makes it plausible that María Lozano and her husband moved from Valladolid to Madrid, as the swift occupation of Valladolid by Francoist forces following the military uprising of 18 July 1936 forced many individuals who supported the Second Spanish Republic (1931–1939) to flee.
Arrest and Imprisonment
María Lozano was arrested on 1 December 1939 in the working-class neighbourhood of Carabanchel Bajo (Madrid). Her imprisonment is known through the official documentation and judicial file preserved in the archives of the Victoria Kent Prison, which operated in Madrid as a women’s prison (Yeserías Prison). Records indicate that she was incarcerated at the Ventas Prison, also in Madrid, in late December 1939. At that time, the Francoist regime began its systematic prosecution of political opponents. Florentino Salcedo Abascal—imprisoned at Santa Rita Prison, a temporary facility for defeated Republican detainees—was executed by firing squad on 17 January 1940, against the walls of the Almudena Cemetery (also known as the Eastern Cemetery). María Lozano never learned of his death. She likely anticipated her own death, as other female inmates had already begun to be tried and executed.
Execution
María Lozano was accompanied in prison by her five-month-old son, also named Florentino. Her child did not survive the appalling prison conditions, dying after barely a month of incarceration. Medical reports from the prison listed the cause of death as bronchopneumonia in January 1940. According to testimony collected in ‘Cárcel de mujeres’ [Women’s Prison], a 1985 volume published by Tomasa Cuevas, María Lozano was allowed to keep vigil over her child’s body for one night. The next morning, on 19 January 1940, she was transported by truck along with other women to the same cemetery where her husband had been executed. There, at the age of 30, she was shot against the same walls and buried in a common grave alongside her companions—identified as some of the first women to be executed in Madrid after the end of the Civil War.
The speed of her trial and the repressive nature of the regime led authorities to reuse official Republican government forms, simply crossing out names and replacing them by hand. This practice is evident in the archival document, signed ‘a’, referring to the auditor de guerra (military prosecutor), in which María Lozano Hernández’s name appears.1Ministry of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory in Spain. Víctima: Lozano Hernández, María de la Salud Paz. https://www.mpr.gob.es/memoriademocratica/mapa-de-fosas/Paginas/visorvictimas.aspx?vid=86495 [accessed: 15/12/2025].
The judicial process endured by María Lozano—‘La Gitana’ was likely a code name alluding to her ethnic identity—was typical of the time. Female prisoners were executed at dawn so that ordinary citizens would not witness the events, and no public record of them would remain. During the day, bureaucratic formalities were processed, and the bodies were buried in mass graves designed to erase all traces of memory. In Madrid alone, nearly three thousand people were executed—by firing squad or garrotte—between 1939 and 1945.
Over the years, historical research has helped recover the memory of the women affected by these events, yet it has proven far more difficult to determine how many of them were of Romani origin. The mass grave where María Lozano still lies today is officially recorded as No. 2005/2010 MADR.2Ministry of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory in Spain. Fosa: 2005/2010 MADR. https://www.mpr.gob.es/memoriademocratica/mapa-de-fosas/Paginas/visorfosas.aspx?fid=2005 [accessed: 15/12/2025]. Although its existence is documented in cemetery burial records and other archival sources, the site itself has since disappeared—most likely covered by structures erected in the years that followed.
