Madrid to honour 3,000 victims of Franco

MADRID’S city government has documented almost 3,000 people executed in the early days of Franco’s dictatorship. Their names will be engraved on a memorial to be inaugurated this year.

The comprehensive study lists 2,934 people condemned to death by the regime between 1939 and 1944, as it tried to entrench its power following the Spanish Civil War. They will now be memorialised at the cemetery of La Almudena, where almost all were executed by firing squad following military show trials.

The list includes local mayors, officials, political leaders and activists, as well as the “Thirteen Roses”, a group of young women belonging to the Communist Party or the Unified Socialist Youth, executed against the cemetery wall on the morning of Aug 5 1939. Many such cases had already been documented by historians but the new list identifies hundreds of previously unknown, or unnamed, victims.

Mauricio Valiente, the third deputy of the Madrid mayor, said their memorial would be “a show of this recognition, of reparation, and a right to the truth that not only all the victims have, but all the people of Madrid”.