Franco’s mass graves exhumed in Spain

In this History Channel video:

Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire scene of one of the key battles of the Second World War.

Archaeologists in Spain reveal largest mass grave from the country’s civil war.

From British daily The Guardian:

A painful past uncovered

For decades, the whereabouts of thousands executed in Spain under Franco’s rule have remained a mystery. Now the exhumation of mass graves is reuniting relatives with their loved ones’ remains – and revealing the country’s dark history. Graham Keeley reports. …

A small group is peering into a hole the size of a bomb crater, about a metre deep. At the bottom are young archaeologists, dusting off the bones of five mangled skeletons. One skull looks up to the sky, its open-mouthed expression like a cry for help. Between what were the eyes, there is a hole. This is where a 9mm bullet entered.

In this wretched hole in the ground, near the tiny village of San Juan del Monte, in Castilla y León, are the remains of five more of Spain’s “disappeared”. Julio Maroto San José, his father Roman Maroto Rico, Rogelito Tello, and the brothers Marcos Parra Barberra and Salvador Parra Barberra were shot by supporters of General Francisco Franco on August 25 1936. The four youngest were all in their 20s; most had children. One night they were hauled off by civil guard officers in a lorry, made to dig their own graves and shot in the head. They were not condemned by a court. Their “crime” was to belong to the Spanish equivalent of the General Workers Union. Now, 72 years later, a small band of volunteers has arrived in San Juan del Monte to exhume the bodies of these five and give them a decent burial.

Historians believe there could be as many as 100,000 others like them, buried across the country.

Reporters on the Spanish civil war: here.