The New Spanish Revolutions by Christopher Finnigan

Author:Christopher Finnigan [Finnigan, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, Spain & Portugal, Political Science, Political Ideologies, Communism; Post-Communism & Socialism, Democracy, Nationalism & Patriotism, Travel, Literary Collections, General, Colonialism & Post-Colonialism, Political Process, Political Advocacy, Essays & Travelogues
ISBN: 9781786994851
Google: TUvWDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
Published: 2020-03-15T00:58:20+00:00

The Valley of the Fallen was constructed after the war. When Franco came to power he spoke to the monks of Escorial. He wanted to be buried there when he died. They said no; they told him told him that he wasn’t the right kind of person for this place. So he looked for somewhere else, somewhere to make a dedication to the victims of the war. Franco chose this place because it’s so near to Escorial, because of its symbolism of death and memory. He designed it too – on a piece of paper. But who built it? Who did the hard work?

Raul stops the bus and Carmen turns off her microphone.

We have arrived. Stone pillars with black iron gates mark the entrance and the beginning of the mountain path. There is a price list on a piece of wood nailed to the gate and a long line of cars spilling out before it. We join the queue. After paying, Carmen returns to the bus. Raul shuts the door and releases the hand break. ‘I think you know who did the hard work: the war prisoners. This site became a concentration camp. Construction started in 1940 and ended in 1959. Please get your cameras to take a photo quickly. We can’t stop on the bridge, but there is a good view approaching.’ Those on the other side of the coach rise to their feet and lean over. ‘The result is a mega-sized church. It is bigger than St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, something that is prohibited by the Catholic Church. Some of the building, therefore, is not consecrated. Once it was consecrated, the 34,000 bodies of Republican and Nationalist soldiers were brought there. You won’t see the tombs of them as they are behind a locked door inside the mountain.’ These bodies, dug up across the country in the middle of the night, were packed on trucks and dumped in the basilica, without seeking permission from their families, destroying crucial evidence about how they had died.

The coach stops climbing and Carmen stops talking. That’s it. History lesson over. Following a forensic account of El Escorial, we are given the history of the Spanish Civil War and the story of the creation of Spain’s most controversial monument from Franco’s reign in five minutes. Nothing on why this place, virtually unchanged since Franco’s death, still exists; nothing on what efforts are currently being made to exhume Franco’s remains and move his body away from this site; nothing on how thousands of families are trying to recover dead bodies from here and around the country.

We park in a bay of a three-quarters full car park. We seem to be the only tourist coach. ‘The coach will be leaving in forty-five minutes. The gift shop is located by the basilica’s entrance. Enjoy your visit.’

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