Missing bodies near-at-hand: The dissonant memory and dormant graves of the Spanish Civil War

Abstract

This contribution will look at the case of Spain's mass graves containing the remains of tens of thousands of civilians killed by the Francoist regime during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and its aftermath. These graves are located in both urban and rural communities of all sizes, throughout Spain. Since 2000, these graves and the remains within them have become the focal point for intense investigative and commemorative activity, primarily structured by a campaign to exhume and formally rebury these remains. This campaign has achieved a rupture in the long-held pact of silence, which has hitherto surrounded the Civil War. This contribution is based on ethnographic interviews and participant observation in two small rural communities in Castile Leon, while, over three years from 2003, they experienced the extended process of exhumation, identification and reburial of bodies of Republicans buried in unmarked graves on the edge of their communities. © 2010 Springer-Verlag New York.