of mixed bones. In any case, the administration war and who were moved there?
has an urgent duty to give a dignified burial to In our opinion, only the political prisoners should only
these remains, to attend as much as possible to be buried in the Memorial, provided that this could be
the families that are looking for their remains, to accomplished in the Civil Cemetery that exists in the
identify all the people buried there and to build Valley and that this is confirmed and allowed by the
a memorial that remembers them. Among other new intensive research.
episodes to be addressed later, an interpretation Just as it happens in many other memorials and
centre should be built in the Valley with the purpose cemeteries around the world, where bodies of soldiers
to explain, among others, who are buried there and are treated as soldiers. There are plenty of such
the struggle of their families to recover their bodies. examples, as the memorial cemeteries of the allies
in Normandy and the German cemeteries, also in
Two Projects:
Decent treatment of the
victims’ bodies and the
Monument Project
battlefields or in their own country.
The “skein of victims” must be unravelled through
an arduous research work, a modern memorial
process, and a greater approach to the history and the
characteristics of each case and at a collective level.
CIVVC’s work and challenge. For all these reasons, the
treatment of the Francoist monument, the building
and the environment must be done separately from the
A) The victims’ bodies identification and recovery project
treatment of the bodies buried and moved there.
must be undertaken by national and international
projects and teams with experience in exhumations
B) The project proposed to be accomplished in the
and other disciplines. The creation of a new memorial Monument is about the possibility of opening a space
for the bodies and a new Memorial Cemetery should of memory. A New Memorial of National-Catholicism
be accompanied by a comprehensive research project, in the same Park-Monument. The next step would
including the creation of a Victims Research Centre be a master plan or ambitious action plan on how to
of the Valley of the Fallen (or Cuelgamuros) (CIVVC) create a place of memory, pedagogy, education and
to constantly and permanently give shape, as the citizenship there in the Valley “without the fallen”.
“Clinton’s Commission” in Bosnia, the work on the
huge necropolis represented by the Valley. This will
be a difficult and complex task featuring new DNA
A Valley without the fallen
methods, family interviews, permanent documentary
research, etc. This implies a procedural study that To begin with, we must make an obligatory reference
would allow to dignify as much as possible the to the legal aspects not hereby addressed (the
memory and the reparation of: the victims, the Soldiers abolition of the Foundation or the current Study
of the two armies and the prisoners that perished Centre, the possibility of a new agreement with the
there. All of them. That work should be undertaken Holy See, etc.). An analytical legal document should
by the State by means of such a new public memorial. be drawn up from which new questions can be made
The second debate would be a focus on the “where”. and which should be taken into account for a project
Is the Valley the ideal place for this “Memorial for the that considers the resignification and management
Soldiers Victims of the Spanish Civil War? Or should of the Valley of the Fallen. However, beyond that
we look for a more appropriate place where to better report, a new project should raise (or rethink) the
interpret the “fallen” in the rebel side and the soldiers following sections:
of the Republican government during the Spanish Civil
War and those dead from the causes derived from the
Expert’s view
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