2023-08-20 22:49:33
The family of Daniel Serrano (103 years old) was surprised to see Alejandro Nolasco as the leader of Vox in Aragon and with a relevant role in the negotiations to form a government in that community with the PP. The politician from the far-right formation was met in 2018 when he went to the French municipality where Serrano resides, 30 minutes from Paris, to interview and meet at his home this Republican fighter who enlisted at the age of 17 and participated in some battles of the Civil War, such as Belchite. In that meeting, both took several photos with the Republican flag. Years later, and this being the last image they had of this lawyer, they were surprised to learn that he is currently part of a party that considers that the Second Republic was a “criminal” regime and that wants to repeal the autonomous law of democratic memory.
“Concord” and “national reconciliation” instead of democratic memory: PP and Vox point to their historical denialism
Further
Contact between Serrano and Nolasco occurred through the Association of Friends of the International Brigades (AABBI). According to the documentation reviewed by this writing, the first approach of the current vice president of Aragon was through an email. In that email sent in June 2017, he introduced himself as a “lawyer and amateur historian” and explained that he had an “audiovisual production company focused on recovering testimonies from the Civil War.” After a year of work, he had interviewed more than 70 participants in this contest.
In the body of the message, he also asked an AABBI spokesman if he could provide him with the contact of another combatant. “It goes without saying that I remain at your disposal for anything you need or to establish a collaboration with the AABI,” Nolasco added in the email, before saying goodbye to him. Both in this group and in the Serrano family they were unaware of Nolasco’s relationship with Vox. The Aragonese leader of the extreme right joined the party of Santiago Abascal in January 2019, months after having interviewed the Republican fighter.
It goes without saying that I remain at your disposal for anything you need or to establish a collaboration with the AABI [Asociación de Amigos de las Brigadas Internacionales]
Alejandro Nolasco (2017)
“This gentleman has infiltrated and used the testimonies of historical memory associations. It is an absolute contradiction because he wants to destroy these organizations”, they lament from the AABI. The International Brigades were made up of more than 35,000 men and women from 53 different countries who “went to Spain to help the government of the Second Republic,” according to data compiled by this collective.
Vox requested the removal of plaques “in memory” of brigade members
Nolasco’s party came to register a proposal in 2021 in plenary session of the Fuencarral-El Pardo Municipal District Board (Madrid) in which it asked that “the plaques in memory of International Brigade members of different nationalities” be removed. Finally, this proposal was withdrawn ‘in extremis’ after verifying that it would not go ahead.
Sources from the group that honors the memory of the brigadistas regret that Nolasco has dedicated himself to “collecting information from the defeated, defeated and humiliated by the most criminal fascism, to further destroy their memory.” For his part, the vice president of Vox in Aragon explains to this newsroom that “his work is not ideological, it is academic, research.” According to him, between 2016 and 2018 he conducted “a series of interviews throughout Spain with combatants from both sides of the Civil War” for a “book of testimonies that will come out next year.”
The Aragonese Vox candidate has a degree in Law, a degree in Philosophy and is immersed in a doctorate in History, as posted his match, who also assured that this young man (32 years old) has written six books, focused on “historical essay and novel.” One of them collected the testimony of 50 fighters from the Blue Division who helped the Nazis in World War II.
Nolasco confirms that he offered to collaborate with the AABI, although he frames this cooperation to a proposal offered “to associations of all kinds in the search for ex-combatants from both sides alive.” “Just like they offered to collaborate with me,” he adds. He also assumes the photos with the Republican ensign – reviewed by this newsroom and which are not published at the express wish of the Serrano family – and assures that the tricolor “is a Spanish historical flag like any other”. And he adds:[Es una] proof that at Vox we are not sectarian and we do not want a unilateral and partial vision of history like the one defended by the law of historical memory”.
PP and Vox in Aragon agreed to repeal the memory law
A few days ago, Serrano, through his family, sent an email to Nolasco in which he defended the content of the autonomous norm of democratic memory. “As I am a sergeant of the Spanish Republic, as I fought for it and its laws, I am in favor of urgently applying said law, since in many places in Spain, such as in my region of Toledo, the names of fascists who they revolted against the Republic”, thus begins the letter, where he reminds the Vice President of Aragon that “in Madrid 2,936 Republicans shot still do not have a monument with a name and date of execution”.
“The descendants of Republicans have to pay lawyers for procedures that should be paid for by the Spanish State to be able to exhume the remains of relatives that lie in graves,” the email continues. “For all this, Mr. Nolasco, to know that you [usted] He was going to support and be the spokesperson for a party that would oppose advancing all these fair measures of Truth, Justice and Reparation, not only would we not have proposed that he take a picture with our Glorious Tricolor (sic) Rather, we would not have agreed to meet with you in our house, as you wished in 2018”, concludes the letter in which Serrano recommends Nolasco to read historians such as Ángel Viñas and Mirta Núñez Díaz-Balart.
The government agreement of PP and Vox in Aragon includes as one of its main points the repeal of the autonomous law of democratic memory, which had entered into force in February 2019. This regulation highlights, among other issues, that “it is essential” pay homage to “those people who made an effort to achieve and defend a democratic regime in Aragon like that of the Second Spanish Republic”. Therefore, given the denialist profile of the current Aragonese Executive, the repeal of the law has been assumed with “concern” by the memorial groups in the region who fear that the elimination of this rule will impact, above all, exhumations. of mass graves registered during the Civil War and the period immediately after.
This is one of the reasons why Serrano regrets having accepted a meeting with Nolasco. The life of this republican combatant has starred in the documentary Do not give updirected by Susana Arbizu and Henri Belin, which tells the story of this combatant “republican exiled in Bobigny (outside Paris) since 1960” and his “fight to rehabilitate the memory of his brother Eudaldo”, shot after the War Civil, according to its synopsis.
After Nolasco’s interview with Serrano, the Republican’s family assures that they never knew anything more about the lawyer for the far-right party or what he was going to do with the content of that talk. These meetings, according to the Aragonese vice president, “consisted of highlighting the human side of the combatants of both sides from the purest asepsis and historical objectivity.” And he sentences: “At Vox and particularly I honor and respect the memory of all ex-combatants of the Civil War.”
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