Paco Roca: “Not opening the graves of the Franco regime is a democratic anomaly”

The stories of Celda, Badía, who risked helping the widows and hiding the evidence, and Pepica, who set out to recover her father’s remains at the age of almost 80. Monument commemorating the history of those defeated in the Civil War. They were rescued by two Valencians in ‘El abismo del olvido (Astiberri’) who had struck bookstores on 5 December. cartoonist Paco Roca (1969) and journalist Rodrigo Terrasa (1978).

“After 80 years, you see the direct relatives of the victims disappearing; mothers, women, children… the remnants who saw how democracy came and are still forgotten or, as happened to Pepica, face thousands of obstacles to their recovery. Everything shows that Exhumation of Franco’s crimes remains a political issueJust like everything surrounding the Civil War. Failure to open local graves is a democratic anomaly. It’s ridiculous to object to a woman taking her father’s remains. Aid is given and received depending on which party comes to power.. The victory of the dictatorship was to silence us and make us forget a part of our history. They erased and demonized everything that the Republic meant, and buried the memory of the Republicans with them in the graves,” emphasizes Roca, who also participated in the comic about the veil revolution in Iran, coordinated by Marjane Satrapi. ‘Women’s Freedom of Life’.

In a video conference interview with him Terrasa supports him: “Fear and years of terror were replaced by absolute silence. Even today, whenever a book or movie comes out, we hear: ‘here they are again with the war.’ It’s uncomfortable to bring up the subject. “Politicians only take a walk down memory lane when they are interested in stirring emotions among their voters.”

Terrasa interviewed Pepica a few years ago and once again showed his mastery by going after Roca. Bring individual and collective memory to comics. A gift he embodies in his works such as ‘Wrinkles’ (National Award 2008), ‘The Cartoonist’s Winter’, ‘Home’, ‘Angel of Retreat’, ‘Furrows of Fortune’ and ‘Return to Heaven’.

He uses it in ‘The abyss of oblivion’ as well as in them. Touches of fiction to stitch truth and journalistic investigation. “It helps me understand a topic. Here I asked myself why there are people dedicating their lives to such a ‘nonsensical’ thing as taking bones from one place and taking them to another. I was not logical because I am a Believer and my relatives died. “They were cremated,” the cartoonist admits “But I realized this after talking to Pepica; With no desire for revenge, Pepica swore to her mother to one day put her father’s bones to rest. to his or Batiste said that the fact that his uncle Bautista’s bones were not where the killers wanted was reason enough to take them out. “It is one’s desire to give a family member a dignified funeral and say goodbye.”

However, until 2007, with the socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero law of historical memory. Pepica also put effort into this process, dealing with bureaucratic hurdles (to qualify for a subsidy, he had to start a company, find a team of archaeologists, ask permission from the Paterna City Council, which tried to persuade him to give up) and had neighbors and opponents (elections were approaching and “Rajoy was proud not to pay a euro for exhumations,” says Roca).

He knew where his father was killed and in which grave he was buried from his aunt, who was a witness and saw him, and asked Badía, the undertaker, to put him above everyone else and even buy a coffin. The Republican goes further, Roca and Terrasa explain: He hid a small bottle with the names of each of them inside next to his body and the bodies of 11 other people shot that day.“a message of danger in the hope that someone in the future will exhume and identify them.”

“Although families talked about him, little was known about Badía other than a report dedicated to him.” ‘Report’. He secretly helped the widows of those who were retaliated against, burying them as honorably as he could, hiding pieces of their clothes, locks of hair, their dates and names, hiding messages among the remains…” explains the journalist. “Doing this in the context of the dictatorship made him hero. Roca adds that he did what he believed was right, even though his wife was afraid and asked him not to do it because he was afraid of the consequences. He was a cultured man, a teacher, and knew astronomy and philosophy. “This allowed me to imagine his thoughts, to make it believable that he was thinking about Homer’s story about death.”

“Archaeologists working in tombs are the first to arrive at the scene of the crime 80 years ago.”. However, identification with DNA is difficult because it is in poor condition and it is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain blood from living direct descendants,” emphasizes Terrasa. The graves speak: In addition to the bullet holes in the skull (coup de grâce), there are incredible finds: letters, pen, glasses, rattle… “It’s cruel to imagine a mother thinking about her baby while she’s being shot,” says Roca, who regrets arriving late in most cases.

“Only records of exhumations and unfair trial decisions by the dictatorship remain for some of them. The majority of them cannot be identified. They deserve respect. In other countries that carried out memory work after the First and Second World Wars” A consensus was reached on this issue and all graves were opened. Not here. “The wall of the Paterna cemetery, where 2,500 people were shot, should be a place of remembrance, but it is full of garbage and syringes,” he condemned.

Results of PP and Vox alliances

“And underneath the official niches and graves of the cemetery – as Terrasa points out – there is a second secret cemetery with piles of bodies in the graves. When you study the map of Spain, you see the location of the graves and there are so many to find!” They mix it up in comics 20,000 bodies found unexhumed and 80,000 more missing republicans. That’s why they regret it PP and Vox alliances in many municipal councils and communities such as Valencia and Aragon Start repealing the laws of historical memory, claiming that ‘they attack consensus on historical matters’. What a perverted language!” shouts the journalist and ‘The City of Euphoria!’ Author of the book about corruption in Valencia.

“Brainless fascists”

The cartoonist, who regrets what he saw, says, “They say it changed the social order! I did not see any uprising against it in the years when the graves were opened.” “Loads of brainless young fascists and neo-Nazis” Just like the right-wing demonstrations in recent weeks. “They design their own truths, their own stories. The new generations don’t even know what ETA is. You see this in Argentina, where those who support the far right the most. They are the ones who value democracy, at least. They will definitely insult us because of this book,” says Terrasa.

While his wife Celda was shot Manuela was in prison for sewing Republican uniforms. Pepica last saw her father behind bars. She told him: ‘Daughter, I hope your father hugs you and stays with you.’ She listened to her aunt and did not shed a tear. “I could never cry again” Today she confessed to the writers as an old woman. “He describes this with an ineffective, stoic and cold feeling,” they say: “The trauma was very cruel. There was no management of grief in childhood.”