The headquarters of the Government of Madrid, a torture room during Franco’s regime, will be declared a place of memory

This Thursday, the Ministry of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory began the procedure to declare the Puerta del Sol building that currently houses the headquarters of the Presidency of the Government of the Community of Madrid as a Place of Democratic Memory, since during the Franco era it housed the offices and cells of the General Directorate of Security (DGS).

This is how it appears published this Thursday in the Official State Gazette (BOE), which also includes the initiation to declare the old Carabanchel prison, in Madrid, and the wall of the La Almudena cemetery as a Place of Memory.

This publication in the BOE arises after Congress approved this Wednesday an initiative by Sumar in the Constitutional Commission of Congress to declare the old DGS as a place of memory and after groups and associations of the memorial movement have repeatedly requested it.

The Democratic Memory Law defines the Place of Memory as that space, property, place or intangible or intangible cultural heritage in which events of singular relevance have taken place due to their historical significance linked to the defense of rights and freedoms or to the repression against the population after the coup d’état of 1936 and the subsequent dictatorship.

The first of the places that will be declared is the former General Directorate of Security, former Post Office and current headquarters of the Government of the Community of Madrid. “The General Directorate of Security played a central role in political and social repression during various stages of the contemporary history of Spain, especially during the Franco dictatorship. There are numerous testimonies of reprisals in the basements of the former General Directorate of Security, whose usual practice was the use of torture to extract information and confessions and to frighten and demoralize the detainees and the opposition to the regime,” the Government defends.

In the case of the wall of the Almudena cemetery, the Government declares it a Place of Memory as it “represents one of the darkest episodes of repression.” More than 2,000 people were shot there during the Franco regime, among them “Las Treces Rosas” on August 5, 1939.

Regarding the Carabanchel prison, the Government defends that a commitment is being made with the memorialist entities, which demanded their declaration. This prison was established as a penitentiary center of suffering where, among other prisoners, intellectuals, students, opponents of the regime, politicians, homosexual people and neighborhood leaders passed, turning Carabanchel into a focus of resistance to the dictatorship.