• Historical memory The last part: Francisco Franco leaves the Valley of the Fallen

  • Council of Ministers The Government creates a Prosecutor's Office to investigate the violation of human rights in the Civil War and the Franco regime

The Government puts on the table a new asset in the middle of the Madrid electoral game: the exhumation of the victims of the Civil War and the Dictatorship buried in the crypts of the Basilica of the Holy Cross of the Valley of the Fallen.

This morning, the Executive, through National Heritage, will present in the San Lorenzo de El Escorial City Hall, the application for an urban planning license to be able to undertake the works of exhumation and identification of the victims of the Civil War and the Dictatorship buried in the Basilica and whose remains have been claimed by their families.

To carry out these works, the Government approved on March 30 an item of 665,000 euros destined to finance the works necessary to access the interior of the different levels of the crypts with the appropriate security measures and preservation of the health of the operators;

the removal of enclosures and facilities to clear access to the crypts;

the conditioning of the entrances and the necessary lighting as well as all the tasks that guarantee the structural safety of the crypts to proceed with their inspection.

This is explained in a note made public by the Ministry of the Presidency, relations with the Courts and Democratic Memory headed by the first vice president, Carmen Calvo, which adds the intention to begin the exhumation and identification works as soon as National Heritage has the authorization requires the City Council of San Lorenzo de El Escorial.

The work that the Government is now preparing to undertake, and which it announces in the midst of Madrid's electoral campaign, is of the utmost complexity and predictably bumps up with a multitude of obstacles, as revealed after carrying out inspection and tasting tasks. crypts, in 2010, under the mandate of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

On that occasion, the inspection work to assess the viability of the exhumations was carried out after nine families claimed the remains of their loved ones, nine Republicans executed during the Civil War and transferred to the Mausoleum of the Valley without the knowledge of their relatives.

The Vice Presidency of the Government, then occupied by María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, authorized several surveys to evaluate the possibility of exhuming the bodies and identifying them.

The work consisted of knowing the location of the remains, carrying out an architectural study to avoid damage to the structure and, finally, carrying out a forensic analysis of the remains.

The works were carried out over five months and finally the Government communicated to the relatives that the exhumation was unfeasible.

The bodies are stacked in wooden boxes with a registration number;

thousands of them are in common boxes with the remains of six or seven people identified by their place of origin.

The forensic report on the state of the burials explained that the wooden columbariums are, in many cases, fractured and deteriorated by humidity and the remains they contain are mixed, making the identification work extremely complex.

According to the registry books in the crypts of the basilica there would be around 33,000 bodies.

In spite of everything, the Government of Pedro Sánchez now announces its intention to undertake exhumation work with an uncertain result, but which for the moment will undoubtedly creep in as a new element of confrontation in the electoral campaign, in the same way that happened with the transfer of the remains of the dictator Francisco Franco from the basilica of the Valley of the Fallen to the cemetery of El Pardo.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Carmen Calvo

  • Valley of the Fallen

  • Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero

  • Pedro Sanchez

  • Francisco Franco Bahamonde

  • Historical memory

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