Franco’s Opponents Finally Are Getting a Proper Burial

A chill wind cut across the graveyard as silence broken by stifled sobs fell over villagers watching two coffins lowered into a grave.

But then the solemnity was snapped by a ripple of applause, signaling that this was no ordinary burial.

The coffins held the remains of nine sons of this village in northern Spain, dragged from their homes one night at the start of Spain’s 1936-39 Civil War to be summarily executed by supporters of Francisco Franco and dumped beside the road.

They were among the estimated 30,000 civilians called “Spain’s missing” -- their deaths shrouded in silence during Franco’s four-decade dictatorship and the nearly 30 years of democracy that have followed.

Now, in a phenomenon with echoes of Argentina’s Dirty War and the mass graves of the Balkan wars, families throughout Spain have begun digging up the remains of relatives who were murdered and dumped in ditches, fields and unmarked mass graves.

“We have a debt to them,” said Asuncion Esteban, 38, of Valdestillas. Her great-grandfather and two other relatives were among the nine buried last month, a few days after their bones were exhumed from an unmarked grave.

“Now they’re back home, in their towns. It’s not just their remains, but their names and the dignity and pride of their families,” Esteban said.

It’s a story that seems out of place in a thriving democracy that belongs to the European Union and NATO. But many believe that it is another necessary step in the transition to democracy begun after Franco’s death in 1975.

“This is one of the most uncomfortable episodes of the transition,” said Emilio Silva, who founded the Assn. for the Recovery of Historic Memory in 2000 after he discovered that his grandfather was buried in a ditch outside the latter’s hometown.

“It’s possibly the most shameful because these people died in defense of the Second Republic’s democracy, which Franco rebelled against,” he said.

Franco came to power leading a military uprising against Spain’s secular, leftist government. The Civil War pitted Franco’s forces, called nationalists and backed by Nazi Germany, against the government’s side, known as republicans and supported by the Soviet Union. The war also rallied fighters from other countries in defense of the opposing sides in Spain.

Many Franco supporters died in battle, but they alone are publicly commemorated. The missing on the losing side were all but forgotten because of an “unwritten pact of silence,” said Paul Preston, a Franco-era expert at the London School of Economics.

After 40 years of dictatorship, people believed that it was best to leave the past alone for the sake of restoring democracy, he said. In 1977, Spanish political parties agreed to an amnesty on crimes committed during the Civil War and ensuing dictatorship.

But Silva says it disgusts him to see the republican dead still treated ignominiously while Franco’s tomb in Valle de los Caidos (Valley of the Fallen) -- is lighted up and presented as one of Madrid’s most popular tourist sites. Hundreds of prisoners died hollowing out the side of a mountain for the mausoleum, working without safety equipment in hazardous conditions.

Silva’s association estimates that Franco’s gangs murdered some 30,000 people and never gave them a proper burial. Some historians say the number is exaggerated, while others claim that it is many times greater. Silva said there is evidence of killings right up to 1959, and claims that there is ample evidence of mass graves containing thousands of bodies each and, in some cases, as many as 3,000 or 4,000.

Possibly the most famous victim was the poet Federico Garcia Lorca, executed near Granada. His remains have never been found.

So far, some 17 unmarked graves have been opened and more than 50 bodies exhumed. In many cases, the bones have been identified by clothing or personal belongings. Others await DNA identification.

“In the villages, everyone has always known where their dead relatives are, and that’s why it’s urgent that they speak up now because the generation has only maybe four or five years left to live,” Silva said.

Conservative media have suggested that the association is raking up the past for vindictive motives. The conservative government of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, whose members have strong family ties with the Franco regime, has until recently refused to condemn the dictatorship.

“We’re not opening wounds. They’ve never been closed,” Esteban said. “They’re still bleeding, and we’re trying to heal them.

“There was fear among the wives and children who survived. But now, we grandchildren are able to talk.”

Last month, Silva’s group won two important victories.

A U.N. working group on forced disappearances asked the government to help clarify the disappearance of at least two republicans executed after the war. And in an unexpected turnaround Nov. 20, the 37th anniversary of Franco’s death, Aznar’s Popular Party backed a parliamentary opposition motion condemning the repression and calling for graves to be opened and the victims identified.

Asuncion Alvarez, 85, welcomed the news with tears. Her two brothers were executed and their bodies dumped outside a village in northern Leon province.

“Our mother forbade us to place flowers where we knew our brothers were,” Alvarez said. “But what better flowers can we lay now than to have their remains finally laid to rest beside hers?”