Campillos meets with victims of Francoism

On 13 September 1936, a voice rang out from the bell tower of the church in Campillos (Málaga, 8,372 inhabitants). “The fascists are coming!” shouted one of the guards. Part of the population fled and the town fell that same day into the hands of the nationalist side. From then on, Franco’s military justice imprisoned its rivals in the town prison. Many were shot. “The execution was carried out without the slightest incident occurring during the act,” wrote Joaquín Moñino, lieutenant of the Civil Guard and military commander of Campillos, on 6 May 1937, after certifying the death of the 44 people executed that day. Their bodies, as had happened before and would happen later, were thrown into a ditch that the oral memory of the town placed at the gates of the cemetery but nobody knew exactly where it was. Until now. An excavation has revealed two mass graves with 127 victims. “It is an act of reparation, justice and dignity: now the wounds can be healed,” said the mayor, Daniel Gómez.

The work carried out in Campillos is part of the agreement between the Junta de Andalucía and the University of Málaga to carry out research in mass graves with victims of the Civil War and the post-war period, within the State Plan for Exhumations of the Secretariat of State for Democratic Memory. It is a project that includes work in other towns in the Guadalteba region. The researchers have carried out tests with ground-penetrating radar in Almargen – without success so far – and Cañete la Real, although it is hoped that the work will be extended to Ardales and Colmenar. In all cases, it is the mayors themselves who, representing their inhabitants, have requested the actions from the university specialists. “That is why our work is important: because it is the residents themselves who ask us for it,” highlights María José Berlanga, professor in the Department of Historical Sciences at the University of Málaga and one of the coordinators of the actions. Since Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla took office as president of the Andalusian Government, the regional administration has left almost five million euros unspent on democratic memory, half of what was budgeted, according to the balance sheet prepared by the Andalusian Government at the beginning of July and despite criticism from memorial associations.

Archaeologist Andrés Fernández is well acquainted with the region – in 2012 he had identified 125 people in mass graves located in Teba – and he says that, before excavating in Campillos, the team carried out an initial phase of investigation and research, consulting both documentation and oral testimonies. They then carried out surveys with a ground-penetrating radar. “The results were not conclusive, but when we started excavating we quickly obtained results,” says Fernández. Right at the entrance to the cemetery “there were bone remains in an unusual arrangement,” he points out. They had found the perimeter of a pit that was later delimited: two metres wide and 15 metres long. Right next to it there was another one of the same dimensions. The remains of 127 people were found in them. They were under some gardens and one of the pedestrian areas of the cemetery.

What caused so many victims in a small town? The coordinator of the historical and documentary work of the project, Encarnación Barranquero, believes there are several reasons. The first, the long socialist tradition in the region. The second, the high participation of Campillos workers in the strike revolutions of 1934. The third occurred in 1936: when the nearby town of El Saucejo was taken by the national side, the people of Campillos gave assistance to their neighbours and even managed to attack the Civil Guard barracks. The fourth was the dozens of murders committed by the left during the first summer of the conflict. “All of this then fell on the population, which received an extra punishment,” explains Barranquero. On May 6, 1937, there were 44 victims, but there were many others before and after.

Shot on the basis of rumors

The profiles of those who were repressed reveal that many were linked to work in the fields, but there are also other professionals related to the railway sector, the legal profession or banking. “Most of the sentences are based on public rumour, that is, witnesses say that there are rumours in the village that many of these people were linked to the right-wing murders, but there is hardly any case that is fully proven that any of them were seen directly carrying out these murders,” says Barranquero. Many of those who managed to escape as refugees to municipalities in the area and to Malaga were also unlucky, where they ended up trapped on the road to Almería and were later tried and shot in the capital to end up in another mass grave. Some ended up executed in the Mauthausen concentration camp.

The extra punishment also affected women: they represent around 10% of the women in these graves, while the average in most of Andalusia is around 3% or 5%. Some were killed because their husbands or fathers had fled and the punishment fell on them. Others “for having rejoiced in the murders of right-wing people in their town during the summer of 1936 or for having incited it,” highlights Barranquero, who has just published a chapter focused on the repression of women in the book. Social control, repression and other forms of violence against women in the Iberian dictatorships“Until now women have been in a very secondary role in the Civil War, but I believe that they played a very important role and the archaeological remains will allow us to find the reality and tell what the story of the winners did not do,” stresses María José Berlanga.

The Andalusian Government has already provided the project with the materials to take DNA samples from the victims’ relatives. This will take place next autumn and, later, from January 2025 and with new funds, the exhumations will be carried out. Genetic tests will be taken – teeth and bones in good condition – from the remains that will be analysed by the Genetic Identification Laboratory of the University of Granada. The aim is to give each person a name and surname. “This way we will be able to carry out an individual exhumation with guarantees,” concludes archaeologist Andrés Fernández. “And their families will be able to bury them, put flowers on them, mourn them and pay tribute to them,” concludes the mayor.