Historical memory in Spain is experiencing a moment of special sensitivity after the president of the Balearic Parliament, Gabrielle le Senne, tore up the photo of three victims of Franco’s regime, displayed by a socialist deputy, during last Tuesday’s plenary session. While the regional governments where the PP and Vox govern together promote historical revisionism under the so-called “laws of concord”, the Generalitat of Catalonia has inaugurated an exhibition this Friday in Madrid with which it aims to make visible the work of the Catalan institutions in the exhumation of mass graves in recent decades. Under the title Where are they? 85 years of exhumations of mass graves from the Civil War in Cataloniathe exhibition explains the search process experienced by three specific families, as well as a practical guide on the process of identifying the remains found in the graves.
The Minister of Justice, Rights and Memory of the Generalitat, Gemma Ubasart y González, has presided over the inauguration of the exhibition, which can be visited at the Blanquerna bookstore, in the center of Madrid. In her speech, she has emphasized the need to promote and finance memory policies to “raise awareness” and “educate” the generations that did not live through the Civil War, Francoism, or even the Transition. “Memory does not speak of the past, but of a future of peace, human rights, coexistence and democracy.” Alerted by what happened last Tuesday in the Balearic Parliament, the counselor has warned that “the hate international” is “more grown than ever”, and has stressed that “weaving a horizon of hope” is an “obligation” for “ combat regression” and “guarantee that history will not be repeated.”
The exhibition offers a tour of the history of the exhumations promoted by the Generalitat, from the first, in the middle of the Civil War, to some more recent milestones such as the creation of a census of missing people in 2003 and which recorded 7,592 people in its last update. Also shown is an interactive map created in 2010 that offers data on up to 900 mass graves in which, according to records, there are up to 13,000 deaths.
To illustrate the reality of families searching for their loved ones, and the complexity of the process of searching for and identifying bodies, the exhibition includes three specific stories as examples. One of them is that of Marcos Andrés Latorre, a Republican soldier who disappeared in 1938 during the Battle of the Ebro. His family only had the certainty that he belonged to the 124 Mixed Brigade of the Army of the Republic, two ID photos and a couple of letters. in which he confirmed to his parents his good health and thanked them for sending him tobacco. In 2008, his family registered him in the census of missing persons of the Generalitat and the technicians began an investigation that ended up determining that, two decades after his death, he was transferred to the Valley of the Fallen in 1959. The family never found him. did not know nor would they have authorized it. In 2009, the Catalan government inaugurated a memorial in La Fatarella (Tarragona), where relatives who request it can inscribe the names of missing soldiers and pay tribute to them.
Finally, in the center of the exhibition, a graphic representation of a mass grave is shown, with details about how the process of searching and identifying the bodies is carried out; as well as some objects that were found in it, such as a belt, a spoon, a comb, some boots or a canteen.
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Historical memory, in the target
Historical memory has sparked recent controversies in Spain due to the particular crusade of the autonomous governments of PP and Vox against memorial legislation. In Castilla y León and the Valencian Community, both formations replaced the current regulations with the so-called “laws of concord”, of a revisionist nature and based on false premises. They raise aspects such as that the Civil War did not occur after a coup d’état, but rather as a result of the “dynamics of confrontation from previous years”, going back to 1931 – instead of 1936 – or avoiding using the word “dictatorship” in the text.
In Aragon, the bipartite Government repealed the autonomous law by heart last February and this Thursday, the Aragonese president, Jorge Azcón, announced that Aragon will approve its particular “law of concord” at the beginning of July. A similar path could follow in the Balearic Islands – where the PP governs alone – which this week approved the repeal of the autonomous memory law in a plenary session in which the president of the Balearic Parliament, Gabriel Le Senne (Vox), tore up a photograph. of the three victims of Francoism Aurora Picornell, leader of the PCE in Mallorca, and the sisters Antònia Pascual Flaquer and Maria Pascual, union members and activists; a gesture that has pushed the Government to take what happened to the Prosecutor’s Office to study whether these actions constitute a hate crime or whether they could lead to sanctions.
On the other hand, the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, announced this Thursday that the Executive has initiated the necessary procedures for the illegalization of the Franco Foundation, taking advantage of the aspects of the Democratic Memory Law that propose “the apology of Francoism and its leaders” as causes to extinguish a foundation.
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