Civil war memorials

[WGroleau]

https://www.caminodesantiago.me/community/threads/spanish-stumbling-stones.88718

mentions (among other things) memorials to victims of the Franco-era Spanish Civil War.
You might also find things like this image in cemeteries along the way. This one is in Los Arcos.

 

[MickMac]

Moderators do not like discussion of Spanish civil war they find it may lead to division.

 

[dick bird]

Moderators do not like discussion of Spanish civil war they find it may lead to division.

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.

 

[henrythedog]

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.

 

[dick bird]

Which is also the view of the majority of the Spanish population in my experience.

So why are there so many Spanish books and movies about it?

 

[henrythedog]

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.

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.

 

[Kathar1na]

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.

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.

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.

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 am not sure whether it is correct to say that, as a country, Spain prefers to move on. The society as a whole appears to wrestle with how, i.e. in which form in the public space, to remember this part of their own history; Germany did that during the second half of the 20th century, too, and still does to some extent.

It is interesting to note that Spain has two fairly recent major laws, one from 2007 and the other from 2022: The Ley de Memoria Histórica de España which, according to the EN and ES Wikipedia entry, includes recognition of all the victims of the Spanish civil war (1936-1939) and of the dictatorship of general Francisco Franco (1939-1975) and the Ley de Memoria Democratica which I find even more difficult to describe in half a sentence; I find its long introduction interesting to read.

I am not expressing any opinion about these two laws. IMHO, they are a sign of how recent the events of 1936 and their consequences are in Spanish conscience. It is not some distant part of history in the history books or in old movies.

​

 

[dick bird]

As I have quoted before, William Faulkner - “The past is never dead. It’s not even finished”.

 

[MickMac]

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.

 

[CWBuff]

Any war us a tragedy; the so called "civil" one - is doubly so.
The echoes of the Russian Civil War carried themselves into WWII and didn't really 'help' in that conflict by doing so (technically I refer to the 41-45 part of it; what The Soviets call The Great Patriotic War)
The complexity of the American Civil War is still being felt today all across the country and unfortunately still cause enough divisiveness between our citizens.
No wonder Spaniards have feelings for theirs as well and fir better or worse are reluctant to get into any discussion. I can sympathize with them in that aspect...

 

[CWBuff]

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.

With all Respect Due those who attempt to forget History are doomed to repeat it.
See

As I have quoted before, William Faulkner - “The past is never dead. It’s not even finished”.

...and un a weird way if you bury History then you just buried yourself for you are a part of it....

 

[MickMac]

Maybe you have not lived through a war I have, it's painful to remember friends lost in conflict I will always remember them just not talk about it.
"What lost is lost and gone forever"
history teaches us not to make the same mistakes again but we do.

 

[Pelegrin]

As a Spaniard I think that last century was quite good compared with the previous one. We had only one civil war, the Morocco war an two dictatorships. In 19th century we had four civil wars ( carlistas), wars against USA, France, Morocco , Portugal ( naranjas) and Indepedence of Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, etc. An infinity of miltary pronouncements and a dictatorship with the absolute Ferdinand VII.

 

[gns]

I came across this in a field a few km outside Urda last year. It brought home just how local civil wars tend to be with memories lasting decades and even centuries.

 

[LTfit]

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.

Wounds that aren't treated, fester and grow. These wounds still run deep for a reason.

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.

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.

 

[StephenChad]

The Carlist museum in Estella has a section about their involvement in the civil war

 

[StephenChad]

The fort at Guadelupe above Irun was used as a prison. There is a memorial in San Sebastian near La Concha beach to all the republicans shot during or after the civil war. There is a similar memorial just north of Barcelona located where a prisoner of war camp stood.

 

[henrythedog]

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.

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.

It’s a matter for the Spanish people, however they identify, to manage as they see fit either collectively or individually.

I have worked laboriously through Anthony Beever’s book on the war and had to draw my own diagrams to try to figure out which faction was fighting which other at any point in time. It makes the English War of the Roses seem quite straightforward.

Before I dig my hole any deeper, I earnestly wish that those affected find their own resolution - even if that is simply ‘moving on’.

 

[Kathar1na]

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.

 

[Bradypus]

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.

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.

 

[LTfit]

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.

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.

"Moving on" is one of those expressions that is easily said if you have never personally experienced such tragedy. At best, you learn to live with the pain but you don't forget. And we shouldn't either.

 

[oursonpolaire]

Pilgrims on the del Norte may wish to take note of the Moorish cemetery on the way into Barcia (on the lefthand side), the resting place of the dead of the Nationalist Moorish Legion. IIRC many were from the Battle of Oviedo. The cemetery is not maintained, and about 500 soldiers were buried there. There is a 12-minute documentary on Youtube for those who are interested (

). While the wikipedia entry can be read in English, I do not think I have seen anything in English on it although Lord Thomas' book on the Civil War has some general information on the Moorish Legion.

A postscript; over the years and many Caminos, I have from time to time been privileged with discussions of the effect of the War on Spanish pilgrims. We are all experienced with long-bus-ride-syndrome, when one’s hitherto-unknown seatmate spills long-silenced narratives. A businessman walking into Villafranca de Bierzo telling me of how, when he was twelve years old and in his ancestral pueblo for the annual patron saint’s fiesta, his father walked him to a grove outside the town and said, that nobody speaks of this but that he must know and remember, when the Nationalists came into the pueblo they brought the council, teacher, and nurse to that spot– and that they were still there. A waiter in Melide, when custom was quiet and the orujo was on the table, told me of how his grandmother was a child when the father of a friend disappeared. And at the casino in Huesca, I was a surprise guest (in remoter areas, pilgrims at a birthday are considered to be good luck) at an 80th birthday party of a woman who had been cared for her childhood and adolescence by neighbours when her parents were taken away.

In many churches, one can find prayer cards for the veneration of martyrs of the Civil War, as both sides were handy with execution squads-- I have one for two curates of Huesca cathedral, and another for three nurses from Balaguer. In the Cathedral of Pilar in Saragossa, they have a piece of a cannon shell from a Loyalist bombardment.

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.

 

[LTfit]

Correct. Not well maintained is an understatement.

 

[LTfit]

This is the trailer to the documentary I mentioned above:

It's called El Silencio de Otros (2018) by the famous director Pedro Almodóvar. @Kathar1na, this is I think the woman you mention about in your post.

In Spanish but very worthwhile.

 

[BarbaraW]

I saw this film a couple of years ago and was very moved by it. Particularly the closing sequence showing a monument to the forgotten victims of the Civil War, somewhere in Extremadura.
Before walking the Ingles earlier this year I looked it up and found that it is the Mirador de la Memoria in the Valle del Jerte, near Plasencia. My post Camino time took me there for a few days and I resolved to try to visit the memorial. Rome2Rio told me I could take a bus to "El Cruce", then a taxi. After some searching I found a bus, which dropped me in a very pretty spot where there was nothing but a couple of closed up houses. I had thought that this might happen so had water and walking poles. I reached the memorial after nearly 2 hours uphill on a very winding road with no verges. The memorial was very beautiful and moving. Apparently the idea for it came from the young people of the area.
After spending quiet time there, I continued up to the village of El Torno thinking I could get a taxi down and back to Plasencia. Only to discover that there was no taxi service whatsoever in the area. And the next bus from the crossroads was several hours later. A gentleman in the tiny town hall told me I would have to "autostop." So after walking back down, I did!
It was one of my most memorable days in Spain, and in its own way a sort of pilgrimage.

 

[CWBuff]

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.

Isnt there one also just when we start the descend from Alto Perdon? sort of slightly to the left of the path?

 

[rappahannock_rev]

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.

 

[oursonpolaire]

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.

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.

 

[Kathar1na]

Isnt there one also just when we start the descend from Alto Perdon? sort of slightly to the left of the path?

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.

The memorial in the Montes de Oca right on the Camino Francés from Villafranca to San Juan de Ortega was erected in 2010. When you turn right just after the memorial and leave the Camino for a bit you come to an area where two of the mass graves were excavated in 2010 and 2011. There are information boards. We spent some time there. I did not feel it to be right to take photos but there is information on the internet. Google fosas and La Pedraja or Alto de la Pedraja. There are more bodies buried in this area but again due to changes of terrain and vegetation and so on they have not been found, as I understand it. I seem to remember that it was again only from the 1970s onwards that families could hold commemorations in this place. Franco died in 1975 and with the end of the Francoist dictatorship change came to Spain.

What these two memorials have in common is that it took more than 75 years before they could be erected.

FOSAS DE LA PEDRAJA. HOMENAJES Y VANDALISMO.

Jesús Pablo Domínguez Varona & Aiyoa Arroita Lafuente. Bilbao. El 1 de noviembre próximo, festividad de Todos Los Santos, se van a realizar varios homenajes a las personas asesinadas por la rep…

cronicasapiedefosa.wordpress.com

 

[Mendizale]

The truth is that there is no objective answer to the question of whether people has turned the page on the civil war. The most appropriate answer would be, It depends on who you ask, and the social sensitivity regarding the issue in some territories or others. In my childhood, at Christmas we could gather around the same table with my maternal grandparents (with Francoist sensibilities), my paternal grandparents (Basque nationalists), the grandparents of cousins (children of the war who lived in Russia until the mid-50s). You can imagine that politics was NOT discussed at the risk of reopening a world war. In certain families there has been a total disconnection regarding the Francoist position of their parents. In other way, families who come from the defeated side tend not to forget what happened, either because of relatives who are still missing or because of humiliations suffered after the national uprising. They are still looking for missing relatives or because of the humiliations they still have to endure. Can you guess who is still the favourite son in many Spanish municipalities in the deepest Spain? Yes, the one you imagine. I know perfectly well that real atrocities were committed on both sides. All victims should be recognised and the search should continue for the tens of thousands of victims who are still missing under many Spanish roads.
In Pamplona there is aEl Monumento a los Caídos, monument that until last year housed the bodies of several coup-plotting generals, including General Mola. Last year they were exhumed and handed over to their families against the opinion of two right-wing political parties. This year they are discussing about demolishing or not the Monumento a los Caídos. So my opinion is that Civil war is still very alive.

 

[dick bird]

‘The Teacher Who Promised the Sea’ is a recent fictional movie about the excavation of a fosa. Javier Cercas wrote ‘El Monarca de las Sombras’, a personal account of investigating and coming to terms with the death of an uncle who died fighting on the Nationalist side.

 

[C clearly]

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.

Interesting observation. Even within a country/culture, different families and individuals mourn differently.

 

[BarbaraW]

The Mirador de la Memoria deserves a picture. And mapy.cz shows a route there from the VDLP.

 

[Kathar1na]

Apologies if this sounds confrontational which is not my intention. I find it a bit too easy to think that "the Spanish [did not leave] 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."

First a small diversion: In the 1990s, a new word was added to the German language: Erinnerungskultur. In the EN Wikipedia, it is called Culture of Remembrance. It means how individual persons and the society in which they live deal with their past and their history. A kind of expression of collective memory if you like and it is not static, it is dynamic. I don't wish to dwell on German history of the 20th century but just to illustrate one point: Erinnerungskultur is most closely associated with the Holocaust but not only. It is also associated with the history of the former German Democratic Republic and life in a country that was not regarded as a democratic state by the other half of today's Germany. As to remembering the Holocaust and the persecution of other groups of society (Sinti and Roma, homosexuals, priests, "a-social" persons, person with a disability), West Germany started to deal with this past from the late 1960s onwards while East Germany didn't. To put it somewhat casually, antifascism was part of the founding mythos of the GDR and they disassociated themselves from this part of history.

The point is that one cannot look at the complex topic of how the Spanish Civil War is remembered in today's Spain and how it is talked about or not talked about without also looking at the Spanish state and government over the decades. What do memorials with their long lists of names tell the Camino pilgrim who walks past, provided he or she even notices them? War is terrible, Civil War is terrible, we must not repeat it, lives were lost on both sides, atrocities were committed on both sides, no wonder the Spanish don't want to talk about it?

I think when one ignores the time from the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939 until the Transition from 1975 onwards - a whole 35 years, the span of a whole generation - and how the topic of remembrance was dealt with by a government that, as I understand it, was repressive and did not encourage an open public discourse free from fear, one misses an essential part of this "silence".

But, as I've said before, I have no first-hand experience. I've merely read about it.

 

[Pelegrin]

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.

 

[Pelegrin]

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.

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.

 

[MichaelB10398]

While we may study the history of nations, the enduring pain of individuals often remains hidden. As pilgrims in lands with distinct pasts, we should approach their recent histories with sensitivity and respect. The profound sorrow wrought by the loss of countless lives in conflicts touches us deeply, reminding us of humanity's imperfections. As we journey from one locale to another, the memory of those who have passed or who have been needlessly killed envelops us, and it is fitting to honor them in our reflections. In truth, we come to know the Spanish people more deeply by understanding their heartaches and their personal stories.
The words of President Abraham Lincoln resonate with this sentiment: "The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here." In honoring their memory, we pay homage to their lives.

 

[kenwilltravel]

This is a fascinating issue but one best left to the Spaniards to resolve. Outsiders may have their opinions (I'm looking at you, Ernest Hemingway, George Orwell, et. al.) but at the end of the day, it's a family dispute.

 

[WGroleau]

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.

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.

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.

"Ghosts of Spain" is a good book on the topic.

Ghosts of Spain: Travels Through Spain and its Silent P…

The appearance, more than sixty years after the Spanish…

www.goodreads.com