Sometimes when I watch my elderly neighbors laugh at a comment someone makes, or see them stop to kiss someone’s grandchild, I think of how much they have been through in their lives. So many years of struggle, with crops and with weather, so many long strenuous walks over the hills into town with hard earned produce, lack of doctors, lack of food, lack of paid work, sisters and brothers who died, fathers who where imprisoned, others who just left and never returned, not to mentions the wars.
Some tragedies were larger than others.
On the 6th of February, 1937, during the Spanish civil war, Malaga fell under control of the Franco army, which provoked a mass exodus of refugees from the city that fled to Almería by way of the coastal road. It is estimated that 150.000 people fled from Malaga that day. Well on the way they were systematically bombarded by Italian and German warships and aircraft, to such an extent that only some 30,000 actually made it to Almería. It is named the "Caravan of the Dead". The road goes by our coastal mountains. The common discovery of bones and other remains were reported into the 60s.
Republicans who stayed behind in the provincial capital did not fare any better. Thousands of them were taken to areas like San Raphael Cemetery, shot, and left to rot in unmarked graves, and their families never heard from them again. The cemetery at San Raphael (close to the airport and now unused) is today, under the Zapatero government's Law of Historical Memory, the site of an exhumation of these bodies in attempt to bring some closure to still grieving families. The wounds of the past still remain close to the surface.
None of this is talked a whole lot about among my neighbors.
But I see that it is not forgotten - and I also see the desire for living your life as fully as you can, while you can.
I have so much to learn.
The Historical Memory Law, Ley de Memoria Histórica, is a Spanish law passed by the Congress of Deputies on the 31st of October 2007. It was based on a bill proposed by the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party government of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. The Historical Memory Law principally recognizes the victims on both sides of the Spanish Civil War, gives rights to the victims and the descendants of victims of the Civil War and the subsequent dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, and formally condemns the Franco Regime.
Some tragedies were larger than others.
On the 6th of February, 1937, during the Spanish civil war, Malaga fell under control of the Franco army, which provoked a mass exodus of refugees from the city that fled to Almería by way of the coastal road. It is estimated that 150.000 people fled from Malaga that day. Well on the way they were systematically bombarded by Italian and German warships and aircraft, to such an extent that only some 30,000 actually made it to Almería. It is named the "Caravan of the Dead". The road goes by our coastal mountains. The common discovery of bones and other remains were reported into the 60s.
Republicans who stayed behind in the provincial capital did not fare any better. Thousands of them were taken to areas like San Raphael Cemetery, shot, and left to rot in unmarked graves, and their families never heard from them again. The cemetery at San Raphael (close to the airport and now unused) is today, under the Zapatero government's Law of Historical Memory, the site of an exhumation of these bodies in attempt to bring some closure to still grieving families. The wounds of the past still remain close to the surface.
None of this is talked a whole lot about among my neighbors.
But I see that it is not forgotten - and I also see the desire for living your life as fully as you can, while you can.
I have so much to learn.
The Historical Memory Law, Ley de Memoria Histórica, is a Spanish law passed by the Congress of Deputies on the 31st of October 2007. It was based on a bill proposed by the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party government of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. The Historical Memory Law principally recognizes the victims on both sides of the Spanish Civil War, gives rights to the victims and the descendants of victims of the Civil War and the subsequent dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, and formally condemns the Franco Regime.
This photo is from Caravan of the Dead. It is originally by Norman Bethune, but re-photographed by me at el Centro de Exposiciones in Benalmádena, Spain, 2009. You can see more of them in the book, Norman Bethune, La Huella Solidaria. (see our shop)
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