Sofía Biondi’s life is full of coincidences. Fate wanted her to study Chemistry in the same class as Rosa de Sancha and, many years later, at a reunion of former students, they both started talking about their grandparents. Rosa told him that hers had been killed in the war, that she knew he was in a grave in San Fernando (Cádiz) along with 12 other men. Then Sofía told him that hers was also shot and that he was from San Fernando. Then Rosa, who knew the list of those retaliated against, realized it. Biondi! “Your grandfather is buried next to mine.” The remains of the two grandparents, Manuel de Sancha and Francisco Javier Biondi, with a difference of only a few months, have just been identified.
On August 28, 1936, they dumped the bodies of 13 shot dead in grave two of the San Fernando cemetery, a teacher and 12 soldiers, considered the first in Spain to refuse to support the coup d’état. Among them were Commander Manuel de Sancha and Lieutenant Commander Francisco Javier Biondi. “We knew that my grandfather had been shot in ’36, but we had no more information. It was thanks to Rosa that we knew more because she was clear about where they were buried,” says Sofía.
It was 2018. In these six years the team of archaeologists and anthropologists of the Association for the Recovery of the Democratic, Social and Political Memory of San FernandoAmede, managed to locate 106 soldiers in the island cemetery. Those from the De Sancha and Biondi grave were located at the very bottom. Their bodies were the first to be thrown into that bag. Thanks to the remains of uniforms and insignia, and age studies, they were able to make presumptive identifications. His remains and DNA tests were sent to the genetics laboratory of the University of Granadawhich is financed by the Junta de Andalucía, with the support of the central Government, to carry out these identifications for free. However, the results were negative.
Negative results and positive results
“It was not the first time it happened,” explained Amede archaeologist Jorge Cepillo. The same thing happened with the remains of Cayetano Roldán, the former mayor of San Fernando, who was also murdered after the war. “We knew it was him, but Granada said no, so his family decided to send the tests to a laboratory in Madrid.” That laboratory is in San Sebastián de los Reyes and is called LabGenetics. He specializes in tests related to historical memory. In this way, the mayor was identified and the way was opened for other families, who are pressed for time to know the truth and be able to bury their loved ones in a dignified manner as soon as possible, to do the same. The price is between 300 and 400 euros, depending on the technique used, in addition to 75 euros for the unquestionable sample of the descendant with which it must be compared.
Thus, last month Manuel de Sancha was buried. And so, this week, Francisco Javier Biondi was finally identified, after several frustrated attempts. Rosa and Sofía’s grandparents. “We have closed a circle. A life full of trips and turns. Because when my grandfather was killed, my grandmother went to America to live. And, the coincidences of life, once again, caused my mother to meet my father on a trip to Cádiz. And I ended up living in San Fernando.”
Amede, after these episodes, is suspicious of what the University of Granada laboratory is doing. “The positives are minimal. It happened with Cayetano Roldán and has continued to happen with other cases,” explains Jorge Cepillo. The group sees a possible reason for these different results in the types of parts that are ordered. “In Granada they asked us for long bones, and in Madrid they have used dental pieces. “They have also asked for more evidence from living relatives.”
“Granada is an international reference”
The University of Granada has refused to give an official response to this complaint. Professor Francisco Carrión, archaeologist and participant in notable excavations such as the one in the Víznar ravine, does not share the misgivings and complaints against the Granada institution. Yes, it has suffered from the slowness of the laboratory. “We must not forget that it has 4,500 requirements and samples on the table, from Andalusia alone, which it has to attend to.” But he defends its effectiveness. “The genetics laboratory of Granada is an institution that is an international reference. It is recognized everywhere. Their working method is of first-class solvency. As archaeologists, we always have pressure from relatives, who have been waiting for a long time,” he details. Carrión has taken some of these families to the laboratory itself so that they can learn how they work.
The professor details that the most complex and slow thing is the processing of bone samples, which generates “anxiety” in families. Carrión details that the Granada laboratory prioritizes in this order of interest: the petrous bone (behind the ear), molars and, lastly, long bones, so he understands that if the laboratory has used the femur it is because, or The other samples were not available, or they were not kept in good condition. “If the person had diseases or cavities, in the case of the teeth, they are no longer valid,” he specifies. Due to his experience, Carrión distrusts private laboratories. “It surprises me that when a negative is given in Granada, a positive is given elsewhere. They do not give me sufficient guarantee of the time of the analysis, and, in this case, a genetic identification is still a business.”
The truth is that in the Bay of Cádiz it is beginning to be common to resort to private laboratories. The teams that have worked in the cemetery of the Cadiz capital have also done so. The samples of the 101 reprisals found there have been sent to Granada. There are 62 families to compare DNA. The archaeologist José María Gener, one of the authors of ‘When the bones speak’, a book that summarizes this work in the cemetery of Cádiz, has announced that ten samples have also been sent to that private laboratory, which can give an answer in just a moment. a month. These are those cases where there are clear indications of who the person buried there is.
The Amede archaeologist, Jorge Cepillo, who has seen the disappointments and eternal waits of many relatives, some who died without having received the answer, believes that it should be the Board and the Granada laboratory that exercise self-criticism. “What does not make sense is that, with public resources available to make these identifications, we have families going to private laboratories to be able to bury their loved ones with dignity.”
Rosa de Sancha’s grandfather has already been fired and buried in a pantheon. Sofía Biondi’s is awaiting the procedures to do so. That day the circle will close for the entire family. Another page of history that has been possible to close, in this case, with an identification sealed in a private laboratory.
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