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Mass Graves from the Civil War and the Franco Era in Spain: Once Forgotten, Now at the Heart of the Public Debate

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2013

Josep Gelonch-Solé
Josep Gelonch-Solé*
Affiliation:
Cañada Blanch Centre, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK. E-mail: jgelonch@historia.udl.cat
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Abstract

Since October 2000, mass graves from the Civil War and Franco's dictatorship have become the most visible issue of the process of recovery of historical memory in Spain, as a metaphor for digging up the traumatic past. This paper offers a historical reading of this process, pointing out the importance of recovering the buried bodies to give them a worthy burial, to restore their memory, and to allow families to complete their mourning. Mass graves have been the subject of different interventions: they have been located, marked and dignified, in some cases opened and the human remains exhumed. The graves, previously symbols of silence and oblivion are now sites of mourning and memory. In addition, many forgotten memories have been recovered. The victims of the war and the dictatorship have returned to the heart of the public debate, although not without controversy.

Type
Focus: Regimes of Memory
Information
European Review , Volume 21 , Issue 4 , October 2013 , pp. 507 - 522
Copyright
Copyright © Academia Europaea 2013 

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References

References and Notes

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