 Though plans existed in the early 20th century for the monastery to become a secondary school, and later a novitiate and college of Augustinians, it was ransacked and damaged in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War.During the three years of the war, the complex was a makeshift hospital, and served as a prison for political prisoners after the war ended, between the years 1939 and 1943.Prisoners who died of disease or who were put to death were buried in an area outside the monastery known as "La Tahona".