2023-08-20 17:09:19
The first exhumations from the Valley of the Fallen after the departure of the remains of Franco and José Antonio Primo de Rivera culminated today with the burial of four of “the seven of Pajares” and eight other victims from 1936, only a part of the most of a hundred families who hope to do the same if the work undertaken on June 12 in Cuelgamuros ends successfully.
The acting Minister of the Presidency, Relations with the Courts and Democratic Memory, Félix Bolaños, handed over the human remains of twelve civilians, nine men and one woman from Pajares de Adaja and Navalmoral de la Sierra (Ávila), exhumed from the Cuelgamuros Valley . Although it had transpired that the genetic identification corresponded to Valerico Canales, Emilio Caro, Flora Labajos and Román González, the remains of Celestino Puebla, Pedro Ángel Sanz, Gregorio Pérez, Raimundo Meneses and Rito Martín were also handed over, as well as two other persons not identified.
The ceremony took place in the park of the hermitage of the Virgen de Rivilla in Pajares de Adaja, next to the cemetery, where in 2004 a memorial was built to house the remains recovered from the Aldeaseca grave from where the group was transferred to Cuelgamuros in 1959.
It was a “humanitarian and justice act” and an “exciting day for our democracy”, especially “for families, children, grandsons and granddaughters” who can bury their loved ones, said the minister before a large banner that gave faith of the “delivery ceremony and solemn act”, with a large audience and the media, together with the Secretary of State for Democratic Memory, Fernando Martínez López, who was seen in Cuelgamuros on Saturday carrying one of the twelve boxes delivered yesterday. “This act makes our country more dignified and makes people see repaired, in some way, the loss they suffered 87 years ago,” said Bolaños.
Bolaños and Martínez López, in the background, deliver one of the boxes amid great expectationFERNANDO VILLASEVIL
Fausto Canales, 89, Valerico’s son and one of those who has worked the hardest to complete this laborious process, also addressed those present. “Today is when I am going to hug my father. Today it is confirmed that he existed. They took him from me when he was two years old and today we can give him a decent burial because he was against his will. We close a cycle, a wound », he added, in the same terms in which he had spoken only a few days before to this newspaper. Fausto is part of the Association for the Recovery of the Historical Memory of Valladolid. Yesterday there were other members of Memory forums present in Pajares.
“We want to share it with all the victims, because this duel is our duel, but it is also a universal duel,” said Juan Luis González, grandson of Román González, who added: “They were murdered in cold blood, point blank with a shot in the neck, that is the truth (…) They were humble, hard-working people, committed to their class, people of the town. And we are proud of them.”
Only the applause during the reading of the biographies of those exhumed interrupted the meeting, which was also attended by the forensic doctor Francisco Etxeberría, from the multidisciplinary team that works in the Valley of the Fallen.
After the homage, the remains were transferred to the cemetery for burial. The relatives and assistants deposited a red carnation on the pantheon, while those present sang the song “Al alba”, by Luis Eduardo Aute.
Along with Bolaños and the general secretary of the UGT, Pepe Álvarez, the Government delegate in Castilla y León, Virginia Barcones, the mayor of Pajares de Adaja, Federico Farelo, the sub-delegate of the Government in Ávila, Fernando Galeano, and the general secretary of the PSOE Ávila, Jesús Caro, reports Efe.
#Bolaños #officiates #burial #exhumed #Valley #Fallen