Finding the dead of the Spanish Civil War

Baltasar Garzón

The print edition of the newsmagazine Cambio 16/1920 22.09.2008 discusses the current efforts in Spain to selttle outstanding issues from the Spanish Civil War and the Franco dictatorship. ("Las fasas del olvido" por Diego Caballero).

Spain's leading "investigative judge" Baltasar Garzón has initiated an acocunting for all those who disappeared during that period. In once sense, the present-day sides in the dispute are similar to then. The Socialist Party (PSOE) of Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero supports Garzón's project. The Partido Popular (PP), which is the "postfascist" organizational successor to Franco's Falangist Party, oppose it, saying they don't want to reopen the wounds of the Civil War.

Just to clarify: though the have an organizational history connected to Francoism, the PP is generally accepted in Spain and Europe as a Christian Democratic-type conservative, pro-democracy party.

Of particular concern is identifying the fates of the 30,000 or more people identified by the Associatión para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórico as having disappeared during that period and have never been accounted for.

Spanish Republican Civil War poster (a secular version of St. George and the dragon, the dragon in this case being Franco's rebels)

Caballero writes:

Hasta la fecha han side localizadas en España 284 fosas comunes de la Guerra Civil y la posterior represión franquista. Aunque las cifras varían en función de las fuentes, se calcula que la Guerra Civil española causó mas de medio millón de muertos, además de miles y miles de presos y exiliados.

[To date 284 mass grave from the Spanish Civil War and the subsequent Francoist repression have been located in Spain. While the numbers vary depending on the sources, it is estimated that the Spanish Civil War caused more than half a million deaths, in addition to thousands and thousands of people imprisoned and exiled.]

Pro-Republican International Brigades poster

Judicial actions against perpetrators at this late date would be difficult, not least because a lot of them have passed on. But some families whose bank accounts were seized by Franco's government are receiving settlements. And there is huge value historically and for families on an emotional level in clarifying the deaths.

The Catholic Church, which collaborated heavily with Franco's dictatorship, has been reluctant to assist in Garzón's hunt for the missing.

Tags: guerra civil española, spanish civil war