Paul Mason

Dec 16

This is the wall at Paternas, outside Valencia, where 2300 Republican prisoners were executed between 1939, when the Spanish civil war had ended, and 1956. This is the only memorial (last year’s one is dumped in the ground beside it). In the nearby cemetery there are numerous 12x12ft mass graves, in which the victims are identified as dying on a single day, but not the cause of death. The ceramic mass headstone pictured is for 53 people shot on 17 November 1939. After the fall of Franco the families were able to lay individual headstones, many with pictures, such as Blas Minana Donet (14/7/40 aged 44) here, and Salvador Borras Garcia (9/5/40 aged 42). Many of the newer headstones record “fusilado” - shot. The graves are well kept. But in a separate extension plot in the cemetery, unmarked, there may be 100s of undiscovered bodies of Franco’s victims. It will be noted that despite their photos many of the men at point of death were in their 30s, 40s and 50s - ie possibly non-combatants. In addition I will add that the iPhone’s camera app clearly identifies them as human faces, unlike the crosshairs of the soldiers and Guardia Civil who were ordered to shoot them. Finally, there is a very poignant detail: those exhuming the bodies today are discovering that the man who buried them (a Republican) placed a glass bottle containing a note of the name of each victim in their clothing.