- 10-N. The Government will exhume Francisco Franco before October 25, in full electoral campaign
- Historical memory: Franco's exhumation: the key dates
- Direct witness "Where is Spain? Because he has abandoned us": this is how they say goodbye to Franco in the Valley of the Fallen
November 23, 1975. It's 09.00. Together with four undertakers "of the same stature, with good education and physically strong", Gabino Abánades leaves the cemetery of La Almudena escorted by several official cars.
He knows he is going to bury Francisco Franco. But not where.
- Two days before they had called me to choose four men. They should have a similar height to maintain a certain aesthetic on the spot. I thought they should be educated professionals, not to get carried away by emotions or express anything. And physically strong; they were the ones who were going to lower the coffin with the rope shots. When they picked us up, we didn't know where we were going. I thought it was going to be in El Pardo , because there the Franco family had a crypt. It was during the road when we learned that we were going to the Valley of the Fallen.
His name is Gabino Abánades, he is 73 years old, has directed exhumations of more than 300,000 bodies and remembers every minute of the day he coordinated the team that breathed in Franco. "Man, I was quite used to it, but I will not deny it was a very special service."
This former ball player and hunter retired eight years ago after a life dedicated to the dead. Because he became the municipal head of the 13 cemeteries of Madrid, a funeral authority through which anonymous tragedies and collective tears have passed such as the plane crashes of Mejorada del Campo and Barajas, the Alcalá 20 nightclub or the ETA and 11 attacks -M .
His place in history began on November 21, 1975, when the City Councilor for Health called him to tell him to prepare a crew because he "possibly" would inhumate Franco.
I was 29 years old.
«The next day they confirmed it to me». When, on November 23, Abánades knew that he was on his way to the Valley of the Fallen, he asked if they should be the ones to move the tombstone. "'No, that is what Heritage is responsible for,' they replied."
The gang arrived at Cuelgamuros early. «We had to calculate how long it would take those who carried the coffin from the base of the steps to the interior of the basilica. So we did it at a slow pace and rehearsed it four times. It took about seven minutes.
We put the coffin with our head towards the altar and lowered it. It weighed 145 kilos
When Franco's coffin reached the base, the 2,000-kilos gravestone was already removed. And there began the work of our protagonist. «I was waiting for everything to go well. I did not hear a lament, a voice, or an exaltation. Just silence. We put the coffin with its head towards the altar, took the shots and slowly lowered it. It was a mahogany solid wood coffin, model 10. It was two centimeters thick and weighed 80 kilos, which together with 60 or 65 of Franco's body, caused us to lower a coffin of about 145 kilos. It was simple. I will never forget it, as I do not forget my four companions, who have all died.
- How will the body be today?
- Finished. It is the technical term. Franco was embalmed. And because of the conditions where it is buried, where neither the cold nor the heat penetrates, it is likely to remain in good condition. You will have lost some fluid, but your body will be stiff, mummified, cornered. Your face could be recognizable.
This capitalist expert tells how he thinks the exhumation will be. «With the gravestone removed, an operator will go down and be placed on the part of the coffin's feet, which is the one that weighs the least. He will lift it freehand and put the shots on that side. From above, two operators will pull those ropes to hoist the box a little more and the undertaker will get underneath to place the shots in the front. He will leave and, with the three companions, two by the head and two by the feet, will pull the coffin upwards.
And so?
«The Mortuary Health Regulations say that when a body is removed from a cemetery to bury it in another it must be changed from a coffin. However good the wood is, Franco's coffin will be damaged. They will take out the body, possibly with the padding of the original coffin, and place it in the new one. In an hour they will have done it ».
Abánades is available to the State for exhumation and burial. "But no one, not the Government, nor the family, has called me."
«Burial in the crypt will also be fast. The porters will go down the stairs to a room that has two gravestones. In one Carmen Polo is buried and in the other is the inscription with the name of Francisco Franco. That crypt was built between 1962 and 1968; I know her well. That's why I always thought that Franco would be buried there.
Abánades is still pending D-Day. Just in case. Today he distracts his retirement with the City Hall of Sacecorbo (Guadalajara) and attends "with the Historical Memory Law ahead" to the debate on exhumation.
And he doesn't forget what he heard one day.
February 7, 1988. Gabino Abánades is directing the funeral of Carmen Polo in the cemetery of El Pardo when he approaches the daughter of the dictator to give him the "title of funerary law" of the crypt. Carmen Franco Polo collects the document and speaks in a low voice a few words addressed to the head of the undertakers:
- He said: "What a pity that my father is not buried here."
- I mean, do you think the family would have preferred Franco to be buried in El Pardo instead of in the Valley of the Fallen?
- I don't know, but I deduce it. I have the impression that who decided to bury him in the Valley of the Fallen was the Government of that time. I deduce that if they had asked the family, Franco would have been buried in El Pardo 44 years ago.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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