The identities of more than three thousand bodies that were moved from Catalan common graves to the Valle de los Caídos (Valley of the Fallen) are published for the first time in the May issue of the magazine Sàpiens available at newsagents’ as of 17th April.

After inaugurating the Valle de los Caídos in 1959, authorities under Franco ordered the exhumation of hundreds of common graves all over the country and the transfer of the exhumed remains to the mausoleum. The history magazine Sàpiens publishes a never before seen list with the names and surnames of 3,300 of the more than 5,600 deceased who were moved from Catalan common graves to the Valle de los Caídos. The list includes the names of civilians as well as republican soldiers and soldiers who fought for Franco. Sàpiens was able to reconstruct the process of exhumation and the transfer of the remains using the research that the historian Queralt Solé undertook in different Catalan archives as well as the General Archive of the Administration in Alcalá de Henares. The report also includes a map showing the more than 220 common graves that have been documented in Catalunya since the beginning of the Civil War. The graves that were opened for the purpose of moving the remains to the Valle de los Caídos starting in 1959 and especially during the 1960s are highlighted on the map. Interestingly, the last known transfer of remains took place in 1983, when democracy was already in full swing.


>> More about Sàpiens