Search for ‘repression’ victims
“Exhumation works will continue until we have unearthed all the mass graves in the Valencia region”
WORK has started in Monóvar to exhume victims who were executed by Franco’s forces following the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).
According to the regional councillor for democratic quality, Rosa Pérez Garijo, the bodies were dumped in a mass grave in the town’s cemetery.
They are searching for the remains of at least 26 people ‘who came from different towns and villages in the area and who were assassinated during the repression’.
“The exhumation works will continue until we have unearthed all the mass graves in the Valencia region,” said Sra Pérez.
She explained that the people buried in Monóvar had been victims of reprisals carried out by the Franco regime.
They were shot between October 18 and December 5, 1939 – months after the Civil War ended in April of that year.
Sra Pérez said investigations had uncovered that 11 men were shot in the first wave of executions – six from Monóvar, three from Elda and two from Pinoso.
Three more mass shootings then occurred over the next two months, with the victims from the same towns, as well as Salinas, Sax and Petrer.
All the victims have been identified and it is thought their bodies lie in the grave at
Monóvar cemetery.
Sra Pérez met with local mayor Alejandro García Ferrer, family members of the victims and the ‘technical staff’ who will carry out the exhumation.
She explained the process of marking out the boundaries of the mass grave, then the exhumation and the subsequent study of the remains they expect to find, which they hope will lead to their identification.
This is the second exhumation which has been organised directly by the Valencia government in the region, although others have taken place under their wing – and it is the first they have organised in Alicante province, according to the councillor.
The other got underway in
Castellón month.
Sra Pérez added: “This is the continuation of an important process that started a few weeks ago in Castellón with the direct involvement of the regional government in the work to recover the victims.”
Tens of thousands of supporters of the Spanish republic are believed to have been summarily executed after the Civil War ended during a period that has been labelled ‘the repression’.
Eminent British historian Paul Preston has referred to the ‘Spanish holocaust’ – the title of one his books in which he outlines how Franco’s forces sought to exterminate as many people as possible who opposed their vision of Catholic Spain. province last