The resistance of the Community of Madrid to the placement of a plaque in the Royal Post Office of the Puerta del Sol that remembers that this was the epicenter of Franco’s terror has reached the audiovisual plane. The regional executive has prepared a video with which he assures that he wants to “commemorate” the 40th anniversary of the building as the headquarters of the Madrid presidency, but, in practice, it is an opposite message to the statement of the property as a place of memory. Isabel Díaz Ayuso does not appear in the piece, but the president has gathered several of her predecessors, including Cristina Cifuentes and Esperanza Aguirre, already “experts in history” for this purpose.
The result is 17 minutes of video in which the past of the Royal Post Office is told, full of omissions and ideas directed towards a conclusion: in the building, which worked since 1939 as the headquarters of the General Directorate of Security, it is not necessary to place any tribute to the victims of the main detention and torture center of the dictatorship. The speech of the different voices involved is repeated: they appeal to the reconciliation between Spaniards of the transition and resort to republican violence during the civil war to justify their opposition to which a plaque is placed in an already “recovered for democracy” building.
The video It can be seen On the online platform of the Community of Madrid Playmad and, as reported by this, it will also be disseminated in its official social networks. Although part of the piece is dedicated to explaining how the building went to the headquarters of the presidency, it is also a new chapter of the struggle that the regional government and the central government on account of the property. In October, the Ministry of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory began the process to declare it a place of memory and signal it, but Ayuso refused from the beginning. A clash for which the department led by Ángel Víctor Torres will take the community to the Constitutional Court after it refused to negotiate.
The presidency ensures that the audiovisual piece has cost “zero euros” because it has been prepared with its own means. It is titled The Royal Correos House, headquarters of the true history of Spain And not even a minute from its beginning until former President Esperanza Aguirre says that the building “is the essence of Madrid.” From there the interventions are intertwined: the former socialist president Joaquín Leguina appears, expelled from the PSOE for his support from Díaz Ayuso in the elections, also Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón and Cifuentes; The former Minister of Felipe González José Barrionuevo, the writer Andrés Trapiello or the also writer and deputy for the PP in the Madrid Assembly, Pedro Corral.
The Popular Front
After explaining the origin of the building in the 18th century and its architectural features, the video refers to the uprisings of May 2, 1808, how the door of the Sun became kilometer 0, to the grapes on New Year’s Eve or the donation of the clock by José Losada. Then, there is talk of the proclamation of the Second Republic and Corral mentions the outbreak of the Civil War. In his speech, he affirms that the property was the Ministry of the Government “of the Popular Front” and adds: “From here, as of August 4, 1936, the rear cleaning activity of the hundreds of Czechs that operate in Madrid of parties and unions will be coordinated with the result of the kidnapping, torture and murder of thousands of Madrid, including women and children.”
Later, Andrés Trapiello intervenes in the same direction and argues that, placing a plaque that he remembers that the building was the Francoist DGS, “would force us” to do it “with the rest of Madrid buildings.” The writer says that when he was part of the Historical Memory Commissioner of the mayor of Madrid, Manuela Carmena, this option was proposed, but it only seemed good and when it was put in the 355 Czechs that there was a similar plate in Madrid. This, as we know, is nonsense. ”
For the historian Fernando Jiménez Herrera, specialized in the Madrid committees formed in 1936, the interpretation made by the video about the “Czechs” has many nuances. On the one hand, with respect to the reference to August 4 as the beginning of an alleged repression coordinated from the Puerta del Sol, he says he does not know why they cite that date. “I understand that it is because then the Provincial Public Research Committee was established, but it was in the Circle of Fine Arts, not in the Ministry of the Interior,” he explains. But, in addition, Jiménez says that the Madrid committees created after the coup d’etat had “much autonomy” and describes as “false” the idea “of the centralization of terror” by the Republicans: “It was impossible for all committees to act coordinated in the same building.”
On the other hand, he questions the figure of the 355 “Czechs” to which Trapiello refers and mentions that even this figure is higher than the one given by Franco itself. “The dictatorship the figure in 240, the 355 is a study made by the CEU San Pablo University in which the concept was extended to any enclosure that had made arrests.”
The video of the Community of Madrid does not obviate that the Royal Casa de Correos host the DGS and states that at the end of the contest, the Franco regime used the building “to carry out the repression against the defeated”. It will be this “one of the centers of persecution, detention and torture of the losers of the war,” says Corral, who despite the fact that there were thousands of the detainees who went through their dungeons until the 70s entered, only refers to the fact that there ended up in the 40s “Republicans who were arrested in France by the Gestapo.”
Pablo Alcántara, who has rebuilt in The DGS. The Franco Palace The history of the building, points to another detail against the mention made by the video that the property was “the Ministry of the Government of the Popular Front.” “Yes, it was the Ministry of Governance since 1848, at that time the Popular Front ruled, but it was also with the restoration, with Primo de Rivera or with the governments of Republican rights,” explains the historian, who puts the focus on the messages that justify the refusal of placing the plaque based on the transition, despite the fact that the measures of truth, justice and repair after the dictatorship were pending.
ETA and Christmas
To this is referenced Esperanza Aguirre, who suggests that the building “has been many things and they – the government is understood and those who claim their statement as a place of memory – want to resignify one that all it does is resurrect the Guerracivilismthe confrontation between Spaniards and the oblivion of what was the transition, which was the spirit of concord and collaboration between all and the consensus for which we achieved in 78 a constitution that is not from anyone because it wants to be of all ”.
Cristina Cifuentes also ensures that in the transition “our politicians gave us the example of being able to leave the differences on the side and advance and now the opposite is happening. It really is a shame. ” For their part, Gallardón argues that Madrid do not identify the building with their past “but with the present that we project to the future, that is, with the presidency of the Community of Madrid.” The former president mentions how the Puerta del Sol hosted demonstrations against ETA, Cifuentes recalls that in 2015 it was the first time that the building opened to the public during Christmas and at another time Aguirre mentions that, after 11m, a “twin plate” was placed to which it already existed in commemoration of May 2. Another recalls now, in addition, the dead by the Covid.
Joaquín Leguina is in charge of remembering with former minister Barrionuevo how the transfer of the building occurred to make the host of the Madrid presidency. “Barrionuevo’s idea was to end the stigma that this house had, the stigma that should not return. This building has recovered for democracy, ”says the former socialist president. And incorporates part of the speech that the philosopher Fernando Savater gave by receiving from Ayuso the order of May 2: “I, which I am very old, I was imprisoned in the dungeons of this building. So having passed from the dungeon to this patio I suppose it is a social ascent. ” To reinforce the regional position regarding the memory of the building as DGS, the video includes the testimony of a defendant of collaboration with the 1001 process that was there locked in 1973 but ensures that he does not want a plate. He says that going from being arrested to attend “official acts” in the building is “a great triumph of democracy.”
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