Camillo Berneri was a militant anarchist professor of philosophy who was assassinated in Barcelona on this day in 1937. Berneri had joined the Spanish resistance and organized the first column of Italian volunteers in the Aragon front.

Born in northern Italy, Berneri joined the Italian anarchist movement at a young age. When fascists seized power in Italy, Camillo was a militant dissenter, active with the Union of Italian Anarchists. In May 1926, Berneri became a political refugee, fleeing to France with his family.

When the Spanish Civil War broke out, Berneri rushed to Catalonia, the center of a revolution spearheaded by the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT). Together with Carlo Rosselli, he organized the first column of Italian volunteers to fight on the Aragon front, which were incorporated into the militia column of Joaquín Ascaso.

On this day in 1937, Camillo Berneri and his anarchist friend Francesco Barbieri were taken out of their apartment by a dozen plainclothes men with red armbands and policemen. The corpses of the two Italian anarchists were later found riddled with bullets.

Some anarchists have speculated that the Soviet Union, which suppressed anarchist movements in Spain, was responsible for the killings.