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Not quite true. We see our role as ensuring that the forum remains civilised and respectful and camino-related. Unfortunately, we know from past experience that not every member of the forum can be always trusted to treat other members with respect or behave in a civilised manner. Certain topics can bring out the worst in people, so we often find ourselves having to shut down otherwise interesting or useful threads. At times we act pre-emptively if we think a thread is provocative or likely to provoke inappropriate comment.Moderators do not like discussion of Spanish civil war they find it may lead to division.
Which is also the view of the majority of the Spanish population in my experience.Moderators do not like discussion of Spanish civil war they find it may lead to division.
So why are there so many Spanish books and movies about it?Which is also the view of the majority of the Spanish population in my experience.
This is an interesting remark. I am outsider here on the forum in the sense that the little I know about recent Spanish history is not primarily formed by English language movies, books and news media. I say this without any criticism, just an observation: I do notice how often and how quickly a thread turns to the International Brigades when the topic of the Spanish civil war comes up on the forum.The few reports which I see in the Spanish press, including recently in Madrid, often regard the international brigades and are sometimes stimulated by non-Spanish sources.
I think that I do understand how painful it is to talk about such a recent episode of one's own's country's history, especially when family members are still alive of those who got killed in civil war battles in either side or were downright murdered as civilians. And in particular systematically murdered. (It does say "asesinados" on the memorial in the cemetery - photo in post 1).I’m just reflecting the attitudes of numerous Spanish friends and their families. They feel that the period of the war and the subsequent Francoist regime was so divisive in so many different respects that they prefer to move on.
With all Respect Due those who attempt to forget History are doomed to repeat it.As an Irish person the Irish civil war and the war in the North of Ireland, which ended only over a decade ago are not a topic of conversation and people have moved on.
So maybe leave the past buried with the corpse of history.
...and un a weird way if you bury History then you just buried yourself for you are a part of it....As I have quoted before, William Faulkner - “The past is never dead. It’s not even finished”.
Wounds that aren't treated, fester and grow. These wounds still run deep for a reason.As an Irish person the Irish civil war and the war in the North of Ireland, which ended only over a decade ago are not a topic of conversation and people have moved on.
So maybe leave the past buried with the corpse of history.
And indeed they do. Much depends on which side you or your family were on during the Spanish Civil War. Talk to a Galician (I had such conversations this summer), a Basque or a Catalán and you just may hear another story.I’m just reflecting the attitudes of numerous Spanish friends and their families. They feel that the period of the war and the subsequent Francoist regime was so divisive in so many different respects that they prefer to move on.
Others may differ.
Sadly, such is the legacy of a conflict and aftermath which divided on many lines - certainly not only geography. My Spanish friends are from Andalusia and Madrid and their families were represented on both sides - in one case within the same family. Heartbreaking, really.Wounds that aren't treated, fester and grow. These wounds still run deep for a reason.
And indeed they do. Much depends on which side you or your family were on during the Spanish Civil War. Talk to a Galician (I had such conversations this summer), a Basque or a Catalán and you just may hear another story.
The Ley de Memoria Histórica de España came about for a reason.
There are at least two mass graves near the monument in the forest on the way to San Juan de Ortega. I passed by there a few days ago. Neither had been excavated at the time of my first and second Camino though they have been since. This is still recent history.There is one aspect that these memorials don't tell us about, and I did not know about this until I learnt about it in one of the forum threads: the fosas.
These are unnamed and unmarked mass graves of those who got murdered in 1936.
You bring up a sensitive and tragic topic - the fosas. They are many, many which have yet to be uncovered. I saw a documentary about the unearthing of one such fosa. It took years and years for family members to get the approval, some were afraid that they would die before it ever happened. The skeletons were identified with modern DNA testing. I can only imagine how it felt to finally get confirmation that a loved one was indeed executed and thrown into a hole.I am doing my best not to sound biased or judgmental. When the thread started I wondered about its purpose. I suppose the idea was to collect photos of memorials for the dead of the Spanish Civil War along the various Caminos.
There is one aspect that these memorials don't tell us about, and I did not know about this until I learnt about it in one of the forum threads: the fosas.
These are unnamed and unmarked mass graves of those who got murdered in 1936. They did not die in some kind of civil war battle or terrorist-like attack. They were taken prisoners and subsequently shot without a military or civil trial. They did not get a proper burial even when they died close to their home towns in Navarra for example.
I have no direct connection to these events and their aftermath and I know only what I have read. It is my understanding that in many cases family members were not allowed or did not dare to openly grieve at these graves - provided they were even informed about where they were - or to mark these graves in any way. This lasted long into the years of the Franco dictatorship if I understand correctly. Flowers were secretly left there. "Años de miedo y silencia" it says in one article I saw. So it appears that it was not only a desire to "move on" or to avoid conflict between family members and friends and neighbours that there was this long-lasting silence. It was also fear, and this changed only in more recent decades following the end of the dictatorship in the 1970s and Spain's transition to democracy. At least that is my impression from what I read.
Someone posted a video once of an elderly woman who talked about such a grave of a loved one that lies now under the surface of a modern road and is inaccessible and about the fear during all these years of not being able to honour it.
Isnt there one also just when we start the descend from Alto Perdon? sort of slightly to the left of the path?There are at least two mass graves near the monument in the forest on the way to San Juan de Ortega. I passed by there a few days ago. Neither had been excavated at the time of my first and second Camino though they have been since. This is still recent history.
There is also a similar plaque in the church in Villovieco, to the north of Poblacion de Campos, and 8km NW of Fromista. (PS-Clavijo looks like an interesting place for an excursion.There is (or was when I visited in 2015) a memorial plaque on the facade of the parish church in Clavijo honoring the local boys who fell fighting for the Nationalist cause.
The memorial on the descent from the Alto del Perdon was erected in 2017. From what I've read the main excavation, exhumation and attempts at identification of human remains started in the late 1970s, to the extent that these non-marked anonymous graves could be found at all. Road works in the area made it impossible to find them all.Isnt there one also just when we start the descend from Alto Perdon? sort of slightly to the left of the path?
Interesting observation. Even within a country/culture, different families and individuals mourn differently.I do not think that the Spanish left these memories behind as they are too deep and powerful, but they are not part of a public and self-revelatory discourse, as we seem to enjoy in English-speaking countries. It is a different country.
In 1936 people in rural Galicia knew very little about the rest of Spain. For them the Belchite battle in Aragón was developped in a very strange scenario.I'm seventy and for me the last civil war is the past. I had two uncles recruited by Franco' s army who controlled Galicia who went to war without knowing what was happening and had " to invade" unknown, hot and sometimes very cold dry territories. One of them wounded. No politicians in my family.
No, I just thought (because of the other thread) that some would find my photo interesting. I didn't expect others, though I don't object to them.When the thread started I wondered about its purpose. I suppose the idea was to collect photos of memorials for the dead of the Spanish Civil War along the various Caminos.
"Ghosts of Spain" is a good book on the topic.There is one aspect that these memorials don't tell us about, and I did not know about this until I learnt about it in one of the forum threads: the fosas.
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