This Thursday, October 30, at 6:30 p.m., the Tui City Council promotes an act of recognition for Dr. Alejo Diz Jurado with the placement of a plaque at the entrance of the Tui Health Center commemorating his medical, political and human dimension.
Next, a bouquet of flowers will be placed at the monument to the reprisals, the work of the sculptor Silverio Rivas, in the Alameda of Tudense, coinciding with the 89th anniversary of the shootings in which both Dr. Alejo Diz Jurado and his colleague Darío Álvarez Limeses, the civil servant José Felipe Muñoz, the employee Manuel Domínguez León, the industrialist Serafín were tragically killed by the weapons of the rebel troops. Fernández Costas and his son Julio Fernández Fernández.
The desire to recognize Alejo Diz Jurado arose with the initiative, encouraged by various Tudense social groups, especially “Levada Libre”, and assumed by the Municipal Corporation in 2017, to name the new Health Center, located on Casal Aboy Street, with the name of Diz Jurado, which was not possible since the Health Centers only have a topographical name to facilitate their location. That initiative was recently taken up again, now with the collaboration of the Department of Health and Sergas, this plaque will be placed in memory of the Tudense doctor.
The mayor of Tui, Enrique Cabaleiro, states that this act contributes to recognizing the contribution made by Alejo Diz Jurado as a doctor, remembered by many as a doctor of the poor. Also as a politician since he was mayor of Tui between 1918 and 1922 and then a member of the Republican Left in the Second Republic, and above all as a person involved in the improvement of Tudense social life throughout his life and also in his tragic death in defense of the democratic system and freedoms.
This Thursday’s event and the subsequent floral offering at the monument to those who were retaliated against on the anniversary of one of the executions of those years of repression that followed the entry of the coup troops into Tui on July 26, 1936 – the last Galician town to be taken by the rebel forces – expresses the will of the Council of Tui to dignify the memory of the victims of the repression as a way of contributing to the consolidation of the democratic systems in which We currently live.
After this event and under the “Mes da Memoria” program, the Levada Libre collective organizes the screening of the documentary “Unha historia galega, portraits of repression in Galicia of 1936” at the Sociocultural Space on Camilo J. Cela Street.
Alejo Diz Jurado
Alejo Diz Jurado was born in Tui on September 23, 1885. His parents, Gerarda and Ignacio, were merchants. He studied high school at the Jesuit College of Santiago Apóstol de Camposancos, A Guarda, and a degree in Medicine in Santiago de Compostela. He completed his doctoral thesis, entitled “Ureogenic Insufficiency”, at the Central University of Madrid, in 1912, being directed by two of the most prestigious pharmacists of the time, Rodríguez Carracido, professor of Pharmacy, considered the pioneer of biochemistry in Spain, and Torres Canal, director of the Municipal Laboratory of Madrid.
He lived on Paseo da Corredoira where he had his office. He was mayor of Tui between January 1, 1918 and April 1, 1922, in the last years of the Restoration. Previously he had been a councilor between 1914 and 1918 and also later between 1922 and 1923. During his mandate, a Municipal Music Academy was created with which to form a music band. He was a militant, during the Second Republic, of the Republican Left party.
In 1925 he took up the position of doctor of the Council of Tui, together with Darío Álvarez Limeses, and two years later he was appointed municipal health inspector. In the Assembly of Representatives of the National Association of Municipal Health Inspectors, held in Córdoba, in 1930 he was named representative of the province of Pontevedra. In 1931, the General Directorate of Security appointed him to provide medical services to the border government police.
One of the most notable events of his career was that as a professional of recognized prestige he was commissioned, together with Joaquín Ruíz Heras, from the General Council of Physicians of Spain, to travel to Denmark to study the health insurance systems that were beginning to be applied in Europe. Upon returning, they wrote a report that was the basis of health insurance in Spain. They traveled throughout Spain, explaining the advantages and disadvantages of health insurance, and they were clearly in favor of its implementation.
He married Alejo Diz Jurado to Concepción Rodríguez Caballero, who had five children: Ignacio, Emilio, Concepción, Alejo and Avelino.
He was the founder and director of the short-lived Tudense satirical newspaper, La Tetera, published between 1913 and 1914, which would surprise today for its vitriol and attack on conservative politicians, signed with the pseudonym, among others, “Criticón B”.
Due to his political militancy and his social prestige (he was known as a doctor of the poor) Alejo Diz Jurado was arrested on July 26, 1936, after the entry of military troops that supported the coup of July 18, and on October 13, 1936 he was tried in a War Council and condemned for enthusiastic and voluntary adhesion to the rebellion. Shot on October 30, 1936 in Alameda de Tui, with his friend and colleague Darío Álvarez Limeses, the civil servant José Felipe Muñoz, the employee Manuel Domínguez León, the industrialist Serafín Fernández Costas and his son Julio Fernández Fernández.
This extensive career of Dr. Alejo Diz Jurado is appreciated and felt by many residents who, after so many years, continue to value his contribution to the collective life of Tudense throughout his life and also in his tragic death in defense of democratic systems and freedoms.