Execution victims’ bodies were moved
‘ Disappointment and discontent’ as families are unable to recover the remains of their loved ones
ARCHAEOLOGISTS have discovered that the bodies of victims of Franco’s purges at the end of the Spanish Civil War ( 19361939) which were buried in a mass grave in Monóvar cemetery were dug up by the town hall in 1988 and ‘ deposited’ at a nearby site that is now covered by an asphalted road.
Regional councillor Rosa Pérez Garijo said they are studying whether they can take legal action over the outrage.
Work started to exhume the remains of the victims in early August. It was thought the bodies of at least 26 people who were assassinated during the repression had been dumped in a mass grave in the cemetery.
Last month, when the dig started, Sra Pérez explained that the victims – who came from different towns and villages in the area – had been shot during reprisals carried out by the Franco regime between October 18 and December 5, 1939 – many months after the Civil War ended in April of that year.
Sra Pérez said investigations had uncovered that 11 men were murdered 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.
She said all the victims had been identified and it was thought their bodies were buried in a pit at the cemetery.
Six weeks ago she met with local mayor Alejandro García Ferrer and family members of the victims to explain the process of marking out the boundaries of the supposed mass grave.
However, archaeologists have now uncovered the grisly truth. According to Sra Pérez, the local council had wanted to extend the cemetery in the 1980s and ‘ it seems that the heavy machinery operators carrying out the work dug up the remains and the bodies were transferred to a nearby area next to a track, which was later covered with asphalt’.
“Even though three decades have passed since this happened, we are studying whether any legal action can be taken to make sure that the people responsible for this have to answer for what they have done,” she stated.
She added that ‘ very sadly’ these kinds of actions had occurred before in other parts of the country ‘ to impede exhumations’. Sra Pérez lamented that in the past there had been no attempt to preserve the memory of victims – often quite the opposite.
Director of democratic quality in Valencia, Iñaki Pérez Rico held a meeting with family members once the discovery had been made.
He reported the disappointment and discontent of the regional government over the fact that they had not been able to recover the remains.
He told them that the archaeologists had bored into the ground in eight different areas to confirm their suspicions.
They had also discovered evidence of the excavation in 1988.
Sra Pérez stated that a memorial will be erected in the cemetery to remember the victims.
She held a meeting with mayor Alejandro García to discuss the issue.
“It will be a memorial so the families can have the consolation that they merit and so that the names of the victims are not forgotten,” she said.
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.