2004
  1. Home
  2. Publications
  3. Heritage, Memory and Conflict Journal
  4. Volume 1, Issue 1
  5. Article
Volume 1, Issue 1
  • E-ISSN: 2666-5050
file format pdf download PDF

Abstract

Abstract

The Spanish Civil War ended in 1939 with Franco’s victory, beginning a dictatorship marked by extreme political repression. The dictatorship initiated an elaborate commemorative regime to honour the Francoist dead and vilify the defeated Republicans. A striking feature of Franco’s memory politics was the , a bureaucratic accounting of war deaths throughout Spain. The process characterised the regime’s dead as martyrs, whilst demonising Republicans as perpetrators. Forensic science was deployed by the Franco regime in their construction of post war narratives, one of the earliest historical examples of such usage. This article employs the approach of archival forensics to examine the reports of exhumations conducted in 1939, and the contemporaneous media coverage. We examine how facts about the war were constructed by the regime and then disseminated as propaganda. This article will focus on exhumations at Soto de Aldovea (Madrid). In December 1939, the Military Court of the dictatorship in conjunction with a relatives’ association, excavated 414 corpses, which the regime defined as “Martyrs and Fallen”. The examination of human remains was rudimentary, even by the standards of the time. Instead, the regime focused on the associated objects—personal effects, clothing, and documents—which were critical to the identification process. Out of the 414 bodies exhumed, only 69 were identified. Notably, a third were found with valuable personal items, described in detail in the archive, offering material insights into the dead. This exhumation highlights how Franco’s dictatorship used post-war exhumation processes to reinforce its historical narrative. The analysis of the evidence and its role in the identifications, allows us to interrogate the martyrdom narrative of the regime, through his own judicial, forensic, and material construction. This case also enables a critical engagement with the broader issues raised by forensic science as a modality of historical representation.

© Miriam Saqqa-Carazo & Layla Renshaw
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.5117/HMC2026.1.002.SAQQ
2026-03-01
2026-03-11
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/26665050/1/1/HMC2026.1.002.SAQQ.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.5117/HMC2026.1.002.SAQQ&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

References

  1. Basilio, M. Miriam. 2013. Visual Propaganda, Exhibitions, and the Spanish Civil War. London and New York: Ashgate Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Beurier, Joëlle. 2004. “Death and Material Culture: The Case of Pictures During the First World War in N.J. Saunders” In Matters of Conflict: Material Culture, Memory and the First World War, edited by Nicholas J.Saunders, 109–122. New York: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Box, Zira. 2010. España, año cero. La construcción simbólica del franquismo. Madrid: Alianza.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Box, Zira. 2005. “Pasión, muerte y glorificación de José Antonio Primo de Rivera.”Historia del Presente6: 191–218.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Casanova, Julián, eds. 2004. Morir, matar, sobrevivir: La violencia en la dictadura de Franco. Barcelona: Booket.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Chan, Paula. 2024. “Refractions of Katyn: Photography and Witnessing in Soviet Investigations of Mass Atrocities.”Slavic Review83: 211–231.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Clegg, Laurel. 2021. “The International Committee of the Red Cross and the Protection of World War Dead.”Forensic Science International319, Article 110648.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. del Arco BlancoMiguel Ángel. 2010. “Hunger and the Consolidation of the Francoist Regime (1939-1951).”European History Quarterly40(3): 458-483.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. del Arco Blanco, Miguel Ángel and PeterAnderson. 2017. “Property, the Forging of Francoism and Collective Memory.”International Journal of Iberian Studies30(2): 73–92.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Dreyfus, Jean-Marc. 2015. “‘Renationalizing Bodies? The French Search Mission for the Corpses of Deportees in Germany, 1946–1958’”, In Human Remains and Mass Violence. Methodological Approaches, edited by Jean-MarcDreyfus and ÉlisabethAnstett, 129–145, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Espinosa Maestre, Francesco. 2010. Violencia roja y azul: España, 1936-1950. Barcelona: Crítica.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Espinosa Maestre, Francesco. 2006a. Informe sobre la represión franquista. Estado de la cuestión. Informe realizado a petición de la dirección jurídica dentro de las diligencias previas 399/2006-E en el Juzgado Central de Instrucción núm. 5.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Espinosa Maestre, Francesco. 2006b. Contra el olvido. Historia y memoria de la guerra civil. Barcelona: Cátedra.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Ferrándiz, Francisco. 2011. “Autopsia de un subtierro.”Isegoría. Revista de Filosofía Moral y Política45: 77–97.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Fontein, Joost. 2014. “Remaking the Dead, Uncertainty and Torque of Human Materials in Northern Zimbabwe.”Governing the Dead. Sovereignty and the Politics of Dead Bodies, edited by in FinnSteputtat, 114–140. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. García Fernández, H.2009. “Relatos para una guerra. Terror, testimonio y literatura en la España nacional”Ayer76: 143–176.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Gibson, Ian. 1983. Paracuellos: cómo fue. La verdad objetiva sobre la matanza de presos en Madrid en 1936. Barcelona: Argos Vergara.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Gil Vico, Pablo. 1998. “Ideología y represión: La causa general evolución histórica de un mecanismo jurídico-político del régimen franquista.”Revista de Estudios Políticos (Nueva Época)101: 159–189.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Graham, Helen (2015) The Sacred Dead Vol. 37 No. 5.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Gómez Bravo, Gutmaro and JorgeMarco. 2011. La obra del miedo: violencia y sociedad en la España franquista (1936–1950). Barcelona: Península.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. González Ruibal, Alfredo. 2020. The Archaeology of the Spanish Civil War. New York: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. González Ruibal, Alfredo. 2016. Volver a las trincheras. Una arqueología de la Guerra Civil española. Madrid: Alianza.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Griffin, Michael. 2010. “Media Images of War.”Media, War & Conflict3(1): 7–41.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Jiménez Villarejo, Carlos. 2007. “La destrucción del orden republicano (apuntes jurídicos).”Hispania Nova. Revista de Historia Contemporánea7: 1–30.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Labanyi, Jo. 2022. “The Touch of the Image: Affect and Materiality in Photojournalism of the Spanish Civil War”Making Humanitarian Crises: Emotions and Images in History, edited Brenda LynnEdgar, ValérieGorin, and DoloresMartín-Moruno, 79-98. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Laqueur, W. Thomas. 2015. The Work of the Dead: A Cultural History of Mortal Remains. Princeton NJ: Princeton.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Ledesma, José Luis. 2014. Las justicias del pueblo. Prácticas de violencia y revolución en la zona republicana durante la Guerra Civil española (1936–1939) [Tesis doctoral inédita]. European University Institute.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Ledesma, José Luis. 2005. “La ‘Causa General’: fuente sobre la violencia, la Guerra Civil (y el franquismo)”. Spagna Contemporanea28: 203–220.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Ledesma, José Luis and JavierRodrigo. 2006. “Caídos por España, mártires de la libertad. Víctimas y conmemoración de la Guerra Civil en la España posbélica (1939–2006).”Ayer63: 233–255.
     [Google Scholar]
  30. Ledford, Kenneth. 2012. “Mass Murderers Discover Mass Murder: The Germans and Katyn,1943.”Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law44(3): 577–590.
     [Google Scholar]
  31. Mant, Keith. 1987. “Knowledge Acquired from Post-War Exhumation.” In Death, Decay and Reconstruction: Approaches to Archaeology and Forensic Science, edited by AndyBoddington, A NeilGarland and Robert C.Janaway. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 65–78.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Martin, Jesús Antonio (Coord.). (1999). Historia de España. Siglo XX. 1939–1996 (pp. 19–66). Madrid: Cátedra.
     [Google Scholar]
  33. Martin, Victoria. 2020. “A First World War Example of Forensic Archaeology.”Forensic Science International Volume 314, Article 110394.
     [Google Scholar]
  34. Paperno, Irina. 2001. “Exhuming the Bodies of Soviet Terror.”Representations75(1): 89–118.
     [Google Scholar]
  35. Preston, Paul. 2023. Architects of Terror: Paranoia, Conspiracy and Anti-Semitism in Franco’s Spain. Glasgow: William Collins.
     [Google Scholar]
  36. Preston, Paul. 2011. El holocausto español. Barcelona: Debate.
     [Google Scholar]
  37. Preston, Paul. 2010. “Les matances de Paracuellos.”Ebre38(5): 125–167.
     [Google Scholar]
  38. Preston, Paul. 2008. The Spanish Holocaust. London: Harper Collins.
     [Google Scholar]
  39. Preston, Paul. 2004. “‘The Answer Lies in the Sewers’: Captain Aguilera and the Mentality of the Francoist Officer Corps.”Science and Society68(3): 277–312.
     [Google Scholar]
  40. Renshaw, Layla. 2011. Exhuming Loss: Memory, Materiality and Mass Graves of the Spanish Civil War. Walnut Creek (Calif): Left Coast Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  41. Renshaw, Layla. 2020. “Unrecovered objects: Narratives of Dispossession, Slow Violence and Survival in the Investigation of Mass Graves from the Spanish Civil War.”Journal of Material Culture 25(4): 428-446.
     [Google Scholar]
  42. Rosón, María and LeeDouglas. 2020. “The things They Carried: A Gendered Rereading of Photographs of Displacement During the Spanish Civil War.”Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies21(4): 459–483.
     [Google Scholar]
  43. Ríos, Lucìa. 2019. “Memorias de archivo y archivo de memorias: indagaciones etnográficas en torno a memorias, documentos y burocracias en Córdoba, Argentina.”ETCÉTERA. Revista del Área de Ciencias Sociales del CIFFyH5: 2-22.
     [Google Scholar]
  44. Riquer, Borja De. 2010. “La dictadura de Franco.” In Historia de España, edited by JosepFontana and RamónVillares, XV–XXVII. Madrid: Crítica-Marcial Pons.
     [Google Scholar]
  45. Ruiz Vilaplana, Antonio. 1938. Burgos Justice: A Year’s Experience of Nationalist Spain. New York: Alfred A Knopf.
     [Google Scholar]
  46. Saqqa-Carazo, Miriam. 2024. Las exhumaciones por Dios y por España. Madrid: Cátedra.
     [Google Scholar]
  47. Solé Barjau, Queralt and XaviLópez Soler. 2019. “El Valle de los Caídos como estrategia pétrea para la pervivencia del franquismo.”Kamchatka. Revista de análisis cultural13: 299–317.
     [Google Scholar]
  48. Solé Barjau, Queralt. 2017. “The Valley of the Fallen: a New El Escorial for Spain.”Human Remains and Violence: An Interdisciplinary Journal, (3)1: 3–21.
     [Google Scholar]
  49. Steputtat, Finn. 2014. Governing the Dead. Sovereignty and the Politics of Dead Bodies. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  50. Sueiro, Daniel. 1983. El Valle de los Caídos. Los secretos de la cripta franquista. Barcelona: Argos Vergara.
     [Google Scholar]
  51. Thomas, Maria. 2017. “Political Violence in the Republican Zone of Spain during the Spanish Civil War.”Journal of Contemporary History52(1): 140–147.
     [Google Scholar]
  52. Verdery, Katherine. 1999. The Political Lives of Dead Bodies: Reburial and Postsocialist Change. New York: Columbia University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  53. Vincent, Mary. 1999. “The Martyrs and the Saints: Masculinity and the Construction of the Francoist Crusade.”History Workshop Journal47: 68–98.
     [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.5117/HMC2026.1.002.SAQQ
Loading
  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): Causa General; exhumations; forensic propaganda; forensic science; Francoist dictatorship; Spanish Civil War

Most Cited Most Cited RSS feed

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error