We’re working on a special edition of Puerta del Sol called La historia olvidada. It deals with la recuperación de la memoria in Spain, or how the pacto del olvido [pact of silence] about some of the atrocities of Francoism, which many believe was necessary for the transition to democracy, is now finally being broken. It’s a question of increasing interest and concern. I see in today’s El País that the UN has added Spain to its list of countries with desaparecidos – people who have been “disappeared” by regimes; the list includes Sri Lanka, Guatemala, Iraq, El Salvador, Chile, Algeria and Argentina. Spain’s desaparecidos are those people who were assassinated by the Franco regime after the end of the Civil War and buried in common graves; only recently, with the foundation of the Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica, are these crimes coming to light. The Asociación had presented 64 cases for consideration to the UN, but only two have been accepted for investigation as the UN will only investigate crimes committed after its foundation in 1945, and the majority of victims were disappeared in the years immediately following the end of the war. The Spanish government has not yet responded to the UN's request for an investigation. In an online chat for the newspaper today, historian Paul Preston wrote the following well-balanced words on the subject: “Yo creo que siempre hay que fomentar la memoria del pueblo. Evidentemente, durante una época era muy útil para consolidar la democarcia que hubiera el pacto del olvido a nivel de la vida pública. Sin embargo, los historiadores nunca dejaron de trabajar en esa historia. Creo que los familiares de las víctimas de la guerra, tanto de derechas como de izquierdas, tienen derecho a saber dónde están enterrados sus familiares, y tienen derecho a llorar sus muertos. Las víctimas de las atrocidades republicanas fueron identificadas en los años posteriores a la victoria de Franco, mientras las víctimas de la represiñon franquista muchas veces no han sido identificadas ni ubicadas. Creo que es el deber de los historiadores hablar para los muertos. Y ahora lo hace la Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica.”
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