Franco’s dictatorship: the silence of the painful past

This article is part of a reportage series from selected ports of call of Peace Boat’s 102nd Global Voyage, seen through the eyes of students from the University of Tuebingen who joined the voyage.

University of Tuebingen students in Barcelona, Spain

By Selina Kleinmann, Joshua Beer and Daniela Bold

While calling in Barcelona, we have an appointment with Pere Puig from the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory of Catalonia (Associació per a la recuperació de la memòria històrica de Catalunya). We find the Association in the very center of Barcelona, in an old building in a small street, surrounded by shops and bars. Pere is a biologist and researcher engaged in excavating mass graves from the time of the fascist dictatorship of General Francisco Franco (1939-1975). He tells us that his work is difficult, slow and made harder by lack of governmental support to fully investigate the crimes committed by Franco’s regime, and finally heal the still open wounds of the Spanish Civil War and the dictatorship in Spain.

^{On tour of one of the air raid shelters used during the Spanish Civil War}

There are 2382 mass graves in Spain, dating back to the years of the Civil War and General Franco’s repression, containing the remains of an estimated 45,000 victims. Of these, only about 400 are identified so far. Furthermore, there are 114,226 enforced disappearances registered, as well as 30,960 children abducted from families who opposed Franco’s politics. Those children were either orphaned or given to families more politically amenable to Franco’s regime. 

Pere Puig tells us a very moving story about an abducted child who searched for his roots for his entire life: Vicente was a man without a past. He was an orphan from Barcelona. All that he had was a photograph of him as a child and a scrap of paper with his name scrawled on it - but without the ‘e’ at the end. He was adopted in Belgium in 1939 when he was about five years old and grew up with no memory of his biological relatives. Again and again, but in vain, he sent handwritten letters to Spanish cities asking them to help him find his family. What he didn't know was that his aunt was also tirelessly searching for him in Catalonia. She had given him to an orphanage near Barcelona during the war so that she could work. One day, when she went to visit him, he was gone. The house was evacuated when the Catalan front collapsed against the fascists, and Vicente ended up in Belgium.

              ^{Vicente at the age of five}

Many decades later, Vicente finally had some luck. His "message in a bottle" reached two women in Bilbao who decided to help him. And when Vicente’s aunt turned 100, her name and life story was featured in the newspapers. The two women from Bilbao contacted her and all information indicated that she could be Vicente’s relative. But genetic evidence was missing. This was finally provided by the Genetic Identification Group, where Pere Puig worked on the case. Vicente could finally find his roots, his origin and family history. 

Pere Puig tells us with a big smile that this is his most successful case to date. It means a lot to him.  He believes that it is important to identify and name the victims, and to help family members to learn the truth. In 2015, at the age of 82 and more than 70 years after their separation, Vicente was finally able to figure out where he came from and reunite with his family in Spain.

Many others still do not know what happened to their family members during General Franco’s rule. There were, and still are, many families searching for loved ones who disappeared during the Spanish Civil War or Franco’s dictatorship. Most active in finding the truth about the mass graves and identifying victims are civil society groups and associations. At the same time very little has been initiated by the state, and much too late. Similar to what we learnt in the previous ports of Belfast and Lisbon, we realised that much still needs to be done also in Spain, to break the silence and openly address the painful past and memories.

^{At the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory of Catalonia}

This report from Barcelona is adapted from the radio series broadcasted by the Wueste Welle, Tuebingen. Listen to all podcasts here (in German)

Our partners in this project: University of Tuebingen and Berghof Foundation Tuebingen