He's Not Moving

Leaving Madrid on the A6 heading northeast, a few kilometers before reaching the Sierra de Guadarrama, you can see to the left topping a small hill, a large white cross. If you take the next exit and get on the road to the Escorial, you will pass a road leading up to a gated entrance, beneath that cross. That is the Valle de los Caídos. It is a mausoleum, created and built by Franco. His intention was to commemorate the founder of the Falange Española, the Spanish fascist party, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, who was re-interred here, and the Nationalist soldiers that died in the Civil War. When the time came, Franco was also interred here. 

I remember on a trip to Madrid, on the way back my daughter and I went to the Monastery of the Escorial, and saw the entrance leading up. I thought to visit and pointed the car up the hill. Until I saw the sign by the gate, that had the prices for visitors on foot and visitors by car. I decided not to go, so as not to further help pay for the upkeep of a dictator's tomb. Since it was declared Patrimonio Nacional (National Heritage) in 1956, our taxes already pay for its upkeep, despite the fact that it is also a consecrated church where Masses are held regularly. 

Work on this immense basilica, dug out of the rock, began in 1940, as a way of honoring only the Nationalist fallen, though later "included" the Republican fallen. It was funded by a "voluntary" subscription that all Spaniards paid, and by money from the Lottery, and some individual donations. The work was mostly done by Republican prisoners. These prisoners were supposed to be paid 10.5 pesetas a day, and have time taken off their sentence. But they were only paid 50 centimes a day. Free workers who had signed up for the job were paid around 14 pesetas a day. The work was extremely hard. There was little machinery, and essentially it was men with picks and shovels and dynamite that carved the hole in the mountain that would become the basilica. This, at the top of a hill in the Guadarrama range where the cold was bitter in the winter, and the heat was suffocating at the height of summer. 

The official death count was fourteen workers in almost twenty years. But some ex-prisoners spoke to a newspaper some years ago and said it was definitely more. One said that there were accidents on an almost daily basis. Even if they didn't die immediately, they died soon after. Scores died years later from the silicosis they contracted breaking up the rock. The prisoners slept as close as possible in the simple barracks they were assigned, to keep warm in the freezing mountain nights. It was estimated that the daily ration for the work they were doing should have reached three thousand calories. But the food they received fell far short of this goal.

Thousands of fallen from the Civil War are buried there, next to Franco and Primo de Rivera. But those numbers include Republican dead that were disinterred from the cemeteries where their families had laid them to rest and transported to the basilica, where their bones were used as filler and mixed indiscriminately with their enemies from battle. Like one ex-prisoner said, he was sure they would not have wanted to be buried with their ardent enemies. 

Non-binding legislation has been introduced this year into Parliament and it has passed. The bill asks to have Franco and Primo de Rivera exhumed and buried somewhere else, as a way to have the Valle de los Caídos truly commemorate both sides of the conflict. This bill seconds the U.N. resolution that asks Spain to do the same. In fact, Spain is the only European country to still honor a former Fascist dictator. Such a thing would be unthinkable in Germany or Italy, for example. Even Austria was debating a while ago whether or not to demolish the house that was Hitler's birthplace. 

But this is Spain, and the governing Partido Popular says it will not do it. This is the same political party made up of mostly the children or grandchildren of former collaborators with the Franco regime. This is also the party which authorizes the Ministry of Defense to allow an article in the journal it edits, Aeroplano, by a former colonel of the Spanish Air Force, José Ramón Ávila, in which he praises the Italian pilots that unleashed bombs on Gernika eighty years ago. 
 
“Se han cumplido 73 años de los acontecimientos que voy a relatar, que a mí, como piloto militar español, no dejan de emocionarme, al ver y sentir unos valores, principalmente de sacrificio y entrega, de una juventud perteneciente a la Aeronáutica Militar Italiana, la cual puede y debe sentirse muy orgullosa de una gesta y de unos hombres que, sin pedir nada a cambio, sirvieron a unos grandes ideales…”.   -El País, "Ordenó Franco bombardear Gernika?" April 26, 2017.

"It's been 73 years since the events of what I am about to relate, that, as a Spanish military pilot, have never stopped moving me, upon seeing and feeling a set of values, principally of sacrifice and giving, of a youth that belonged to the Italian Aeronautic Military, which can and should feel very proud of an exploit and of men, who, without asking for anything in exchange, were servants to great ideals..."

I think Franco will be staying there for a while, yet.

Valley of the Fallen, Valle de los Caidos, Madrid, spain

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Not So Fast, 9. Fairness.

We're Moving!

In Normal Times, 1. Blinking Awake.