Building a memorial to the disappeared
Freedom fighters dumped in mass graves will be remembered, says councillor
MORE victims of Franco’s fascist regime have been located in the cemetery at Paterna in Valencia province.
Regional councillor for transparency and democratic quality, Rosa Pérez Garijo visited the site to see how work was progressing at the mass grave known as ‘fosa 126’.
She explained that the remains of 12 people executed by Franco’s troops have been located so far in the unmarked tomb.
Two of the skeletons have been exhumed and DNA samples are being taken so they can be identified and then buried by their families.
The councillor noted that the mass grave is the largest of its kind in the Valencia region.
They are hoping to find the remains of 170 people who were shot in five different mass executions between August and September of 1940 – more than 16 months after the Spanish Civil War had ended.
Their bodies were dumped in an enormous unmarked grave at Paterna cemetery, where other victims were also interred in a similar fashion in other pits.
Sra Pérez Garijo noted that 2,238 people considered to be opponents of the Franco regime had been shot in Paterna alone by the fascists at the end of the Civil War and in the years that followed.
The regional government is stumping up €447,700 for this latest intervention at the cemetery, which will fund the exhumation and anthropological examination of the bones.
Archaeologists have also found shirt buttons, belt buckles, shoes and other personal items in the tomb.
Sra Pérez Garijo noted that they had ‘come a long way’ in their work to exhume all the death pits which exist in the Valencia region.
“We want a region which is free of mass graves so we can repair a historic debt with the victims and their families,” she said.
The councillor added that a monument to the people who were murdered would be erected at Paterna cemetery.
The remains of all victims who they are not able to identify will be buried there, she said.
The homage to the ‘disappeared’ would help to let ‘the
whole world know what happened here’.
She reminded that many of those who died had been ‘defending our rights and freedoms’ against fascism.
The 'cultured ones' mass grave
It was last May that a dig began at a pit which has become known as the ‘fosa de la cultura’ (mass grave of culture).
In it the fascists had dumped the bodies of teachers, journalists, artists, judges, local politicians and representatives of cultural associations.
The mass grave – officially called pit 114 – is located close to the entrance of Paterna cemetery and the excavation is being funded by a local historical memory association.
An estimated 31 victims lie in the earth, people who were shot between May 9 and June 28 of 1940.
Family members are hoping that DNA from the remains will enable them to be identified so they can be given a dignified burial.