The
Spanish Civil War. It will always hold a special place in the hearts of those
on the left of politics. Those on the far right would prefer you forgot it ever
happened.
Internationally
it is fast becoming another date in history: an event that happened before
World War II and which for Germany was a practice run. Yet in Spain the
memories are still raw nowhere more so than amongst the thousands of families
who lost grandparents, parents, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunt, nieces
and nephews, assassinated by Franco’s forces and who to this day lay in massed
or unmarked graves.
It was
over a weekend at the end of March in 2009 that I found myself pitched in to
tragedy of that conflict. In the Cádiz village of Jimena de la Frontera, my
home for the past 15 years, they held a conference on the Spanish Civil War and
how it affected the local community. It reached its climax on the Sunday with a
visit to La Sauceda about 25 kilometres from Jimena.
I wrote
at the time: “In November 1936 Lieutenant José Robles of the Instituto Armado
led his troops from Ubrique to La Sauceda were they rendezvoused with other
forces. La Sauceda was a small mountain top hamlet that for generations had
been a refuge for bandits. Now apart from the local population it was a place
of hiding for the many Republican and communist supporters that had fled the
advance of Franco’s forces.
“Several
hundred people were sheltering there and the Nationalist force made up of the
army, Falange, Guardia Civil and Militias crept up on La Sauceda through the
woods. After an aerial attack in which many men were killed or fled the troops
moved in and took the inhabitants prisoners.
“The
women and children were taken to the nearby cortijo of El Marrufo in lorries
where they were held in the chapel. The men were taken on foot. Many of the
women were raped before both they and the children were shot and dumped in a
mass grave. The grave beneath one of the buildings is as of yet unexcavated but
along with the men's graves nearer Puerto de Galis they are believed to be
amongst the largest in the province with hundreds of victims.”
Well time has move on and at last
excavations have started to recover the remains from the graves on what is a
private estate. It is a daunting task. However
on Saturday the first 28 of the hundreds of people who were tortured and
executed by Franco’s troops at the cortijo were buried with dignity 76 years
after they were shot and dumped in mass graves.
Theirs are the first bodies to be found in the seven
mass graves that are known to be at the estate in the Valle de la Sauceda. In
1936 the estate was converted in to a torture camp for the hundreds of families
who had sought refuge at Sauceda from the advancing Franco troops.
The Foro por la Memoria del Campo de Gibraltar and the
Asociación de Familiares de Represaliados por el Franquismo de La Sauceda y El
Marrufo began the work last July to archaeologically excavate the cortijo. The
28 discovered were all shot. It is clear they had their hands bound with wire
and were then shot in the head: all also have different impacts on their
bodies. This all goes to confirm the horrors that had occurred at El Marrufo between
November 1936 and February 1937.
The 28 bodies found in the first phase of the
excavation were buried in the cemetery at La Sauceda. The village is now abandoned
and the cemetery was in a semi-ruined state but has now been restored for these
victims so they could be buried in dignity.
Andrés del Río of the Foro por la Memoria del Campo de
Gibraltar said it was important not only to recover their bodies but also to
establish the Republican values and the ideas for which they died. The ceremony
was attended by the director general of Memoria Democrática, Luis Naranjo
Cordobés, who read a manifesto setting out the ideals for which these people
were executed at the cortijo.
The studies have not concluded as the DNA of the
victims has been collected so that their families can be traced. It will be
difficult because between 200 and 800 people disappeared in La Sauceda and the
historians have only located twenty families so far.
Back in 2009 I wrote these words about the ceremony I
attended at La Sauceda. The same words ring just as true today after Saturday’s
interments: “It is at these moments that the
politics, the facts and the figures are stripped away. It is then you are faced
with the raw emotion felt by those who suffered these deeds all these years
ago. It was not statistics that perished but fathers and mothers, sons and
daughters, brothers and sisters. It would take a stronger man (or woman) than
me not to have been affected by their openly displayed grief and I have no
shame in saying my tears mingled with theirs on this hallowed ground”.
(The above article appeared in the London
Progressive Journal on December 6 2012 and in other publications).
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.