> EXHUMATIONS OF SPANISH CIVIL WAR EXECUTION VICTIMS IN ORIHUELA CEMETERY
Exhumations of Spanish Civil War execution victims in Orihuela cemetery
17 Republicans were shot in 1939 and buried in a mass grave
A topic which is always controversial in Spain is the exhumation and reburial of victims of the Spanish Civil war, particularly those shot in reprisal killings at the end of the Civil War and at the beginning of the Dictatorship.
The Valencia Region is the site of many such execution sites and as the regional government is a socialist government, is committed to continuing the process initiated following the creation of the 2007 Historical Memory Law, passed during the socialist government of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. The Historical Memory Law principally recognizes the victims on both sides of the Spanish Civil War, gives rights to the victims and the descendants of victims of the Civil War and the subsequent dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, and formally condemns the Franco Regime.
One of the more controversial aspects of the law has been the policy to exhume mass graves, identify the victims and return the remains to the families of the deceased so that they can be interred in family plots.
In this case, the victims were flung into a mass grave after execution, but it's common for the graves to be in unhallowed ground. Very often, family members will know where bodies were buried, but have never dared to attempt to recover them.
This week the Regional Minister for Participation, Transparency, Cooperation and Democratic Quality, Rosa Pérez Garijo, and the general director of Democratic Quality, Iñaki Pérez Rico, paid a visit to the parish cemetery of Orihuela, where the exhumation of victims of the Civil War and the Franco dictatorship is underway.
The works, which began on November 17th in the area destined for the civil cemetery of the Orihuela Parish Cemetery, will take place over a period of three months and plans to recover the remains of 17 Republicans shot in 1939 who are buried in a mass grave.
The executions, according to the maps of the location of graves made in the Region, occurred shortly after the end of the Civil War. On October 24th, 1939, three people were executed and on November 17th another 14 after a summary trial. The victims came mainly from Orihuela, Benferri, Jacarilla, Redován, Almoradí, Catral and Torrevieja.
The objective is to scientifically exhume the remains of those shot during and in the retaliatory killings which took place after the Civil War and in the early days of the Franco dictatorship so that, at a later stage, the remains can be handed over to their families.
The Minister for Democratic Quality, Rosa Pérez Garijo, said that this exhumation "is complying with the roadmap set since the beginning of the legislature to exhume all the remains of victims of Franco's repression that exist in our territory."
"We are restoring the dignity, not of the victims who never lost it; with each exhumation and each time we deliver some remains to their families, we are restoring a little dignity to our country."
This project has been awarded by the Department of Democratic Quality to a company specialized in archaeological excavation work, Drakkar Consultora, with a budget of 23,776.50 euros for the investigation, location, delimitation, exhumation and anthropological study of victims of the War Civil and the Franco dictatorship in Orihuela.
The exhumations of Orihuela are part of a batch of four contracts awarded by the Ministry with a budget of 74,653.37 euros to locate the remains of reprisals by the Franco regime in graves located in Castelló, Segorbe and Alicante.
Anyone living within driving distance of Orihuela may be interested to visit locations in the municipality linked to the poet Miguel Hernández, one of Spain's best-known poets, who died while imprisoned during the Civil War and was born in Orihuela.
This interested can visit his birthplace, the Moorish wall Museum in which there is a model of the former palace which became a jail and in which his wife was born and the Murales de san Isidro, a district in which the walls of the houses have been decorated with wall murals in homage to the poet; an interesting morning out.