"After the war came the worst. We were very hungry. the kangaroo [the truck] the wheat we grew for the war was taken from Germany to Europe". Consuelo Caudeli Cànoves tells it, one of so many women who suffered the merciless Francoist repression at the end of the Spanish Civil War. Photojournalist Eva Máñez published the 2022 a book about the mass graves of Paterna and now focuses on the Safor and opens the focus beyond the shootings to talk about other forms of repression. Memory of oblivion it's a book that brings history down to earth with first-hand testimonies about maquis, shaved bun, exile, proscribed Valencian I pava, an Italian plane that shot at discretion against the civilian population of Gandia. In a new demonstration that memory is not individual, Máñez introduces us to the heirs of a collective trauma who fight to return singularity and humanity to those who defended the legitimate government of the Republic.
Tell us about the book as an object. Of that semi-transparent veil that only hints at the cover behind it, the back sewn with red thread…
The book is a metaphor for The memory of oblivion. There is a veil over something that is hidden, which is not completely transparent. Besides, this strass cover makes a noise that is similar to when you go to consult your grandfather's summary. It is sewn with red thread because it seeks to resemble shafts bundles. It is a material that links you to your past, in your family history.
Paterna's book was all in color, but in Gandia you have incorporated black and white.
Because here we are talking about two moments, we are talking about a past and a present. We currently have the pit and the spaces that still exist today, that's why they are in color. When people talk about their family stories, he is talking about the past. I wanted to use color and black and white as a narrative tool.
Among the interviewees we find a reference in Valencian literature such as Josep Piera, who died last April. How was the meeting with him??
I went to his house in La Drova because I needed someone to talk to me about the linguistic issue and the cultural issue. Because one of the things that was lost during the dictatorship was the language. He didn't talk so much about his personal experiences, rather he made a more intellectual reflection. But it's fine, because it gives context.
Another well-known name that appears is that of Marifé Arroyo, Piera donut, to which Zoo dedicated the song "La mestra". She fought for the inclusion of Valencian in the public school, despite being born in Salamanca and being the daughter of a civil guard. Tell us what the repression of women was like.
The women of La Safor suffered specific repression for being women. A violence, especially, economic, because they took their houses and properties if the husband had been retaliated against; but also sexual. Besides, there were many shaved women. In Xeraco I spoke to a woman who had a grandmother who was shaved. This led me to two or three other ladies, and they explained to me that up to fifteen or twenty of the village had been shaved. They perfectly remembered being shaved in a barber shop and the name of the Falangist who did it. Shaving them had a lot to do with trying to humiliate and attack their femininity, because Francoism, as guarantor of the national-catholic society, made them responsible for not maintaining the morals of their families.
How did they survive?
Many joined the resistance by putting themselves at the head of the estraperlo. They were very brave women who went from Oliva to Cullera by train, bike or walk, they carry oil, bodies… The police would stop them and steal it from them. It was the only way, surely, they could go ahead, because they were red and no one was going to give them work.
There are families who do not want to exhume the graves. Why?
The State is not exhuming exhumation and people must organize themselves: must set up an association, draw up statutes, look for the grant money… After, they are very long processes and are not always successful. only one 10% of the remains found match the DNA. then, it's very complicated and I understand that there are people who don't want to. The Paternal, in the seventies, the families paid the City Council to have the pits in perpetuity and they could not empty them. They put up small plaques with the names and professions of those buried as a humble tribute and there are people who think that this is enough. What if I dig it up?, if we take out the people who are in there, we will empty that space of meaning. There are a few families who think they are in there with their mates, that this is history and that the best way to honor it is to continue there.
Some witnesses talk about the relief they felt when they found out that their relative had not committed any crime. Roman faces the idea of: "I would have done something"?
It's just that they've been told all their lives that their father is a murderer. I clar, that shuts you up. Those people finally breathe when, thanks to the Law of Democratic Memory, can access court summaries, and sees that everything is a pantomime. It's a kind of repair, but it would be necessary to make a judicial reparation to all these people.
One of the voices in the book, Alegria Just, account that, when Franco died, someone brought champagne and his father said that you don't drink it because of someone's death, it is drunk when the war is won and they had not won it. You think that the fact that Spain failed to defeat fascism has to do with us being one forgetful country?
Clar, clar, clar. It's that, there is a Francoism that has continued. The judges remain the same. Look at the problem we have now with the judiciary and with education. Who is the private school?? They are church institutions that want to continue having State privileges, despite being non-denominational. Who are the military?? And employers? How they made those fortunes? With slave labor, stealing land and property… That is why it is in their interest that no memory is made. The exhibition went to Argentina and people were freaking out, I didn't understand anything. Because, clar, there has indeed been a judicial process, there has been talk about who the perpetrators are. Here, the Law of Democratic Memory talks about victims, but he doesn't talk about victimizers, therefore it is incomplete.
as you say, your photos have been exhibited in Argentina, also in Cuba and Luxembourg. You expected this work to be of interest outside of Spain?
Very interested. To Cuba, people were crying a lot. I don't think I've cried so much at an exhibition. Because many descendants of immigrants went there and they had a very emotional connection with the Republic. In Argentina I was able to be with the people of H.I.J.O.S., the seas of the Plaza de Mayo, do interviews… They have done a much more powerful process than us, a true process, justice and reparation, of June at the Military Boards, to dignify memory spaces, of restitution of stolen babies… Getting to know these people was like doing a master's degree in Human Rights. And Luxembourg, the center of Europe, it is very well understood what the Second World War was. The questions were different. I had enough of feminist women, also with relatives of the international brigade members, and the questions were closely linked to the anti-fascist theme. It may be because of the memory they have of the partisans of the Second World War, which is still there and is strong enough.
You plan to travel to more countries with this job?
I'm going to give you a scoop: the exhibition will go to Mexico, through the Cultural Academy of Spain, which is where all the relatives of the Republicans are. They want to bond The guardians of memory with women seekers, those women who are looking for the missing from drug trafficking. The work is taking an interesting enough route. A job I have pawned in that it is made in Valencian - despite my limitations with the language -, because I think it's important, he has traveled to other cultures and has been translated into French and Spanish. I believe that human rights are international and of interest everywhere.
A few weeks ago you inaugurated the exhibition in Xàtiva Women and Franco's Repression. The Roses of Paterna and the Guardians of Memory. It is a replica of the Luxembourg one? What can we find there??
No, it's different. Xàtiva's exhibition is super cool. It is a feminist and anti-fascist exhibition. It is an informative exhibition that highlights the Roses of Paterna, the twenty women who were shot in Paterna. It is based on the studies of Vicenta Verdugo and other historians who have investigated these women in academic articles of the university. What we do in Xàtiva is a synthesis, combining short texts - because people don't read more - with my photos of the families, of the objects found in the pits - in collaboration with L'Etno -, pieces of the summary or period photographs that have been given to us in the Kingdom Archive. On the other hand they are The guardians of memory and some photos of Paterna's exhumations that show what an exhumation process is like. Here we are talking about two sides: the women who suffer the most brutal repression, what is, be killed; and those that keep the memory, who are also suffering from repression. They are the two sides of this feminine and feminist look at the democratic memory of our Valencian Country.
In the fifty years we have had democracy, memory has not been restored. I guess the relatives don't expect anything from the right though, who think about the fact that the left has not in practice given a dignified burial to all those retaliated against when it has been in power?
In Germany, in France and Italy, the right has not hidden what the partisans were. They can make them more heroic or less, but they do not hide this memory. Here, is that, it has been hidden directly. It can't be that, for example, the land of Paterna, where they were shot 2.278 people, is not marked or conditioned, that is a wall in the middle of a dirty forest. It is a place that, if not completely abandoned, it's because families go, and because the people of the Democratic Memory Coordinator have a very interesting project to bring to the high schools there. the use suitable the place, otherwise, that would be a dump. This democratic anomaly cannot exist in a democratic country, that there are still people in pits, accused of crimes they did not commit, with these family and social stigmas on top, it can't be. To advance democratically we must overcome this, and to overcome it justice is needed, truth and reparation. But, we cannot be a complete democracy and this ghost of Francoism and the extreme right will always be resurfacing. To close the wounds, you need to cure them; but, they get infected.
In the Gandia cemetery, niches were built above the ground where a large pit was known to be. Who makes that decision and with what intention?
Who made this decision, jo, exactly, I don't know. In fact, Francoism in Gandia is little studied. Every time I give a talk I say it: "historians, historians, people who study history, which must do the TFG at the end of the year: the history in Gandia needs to be researched a lot. There is a niche there!”. Yes, the war is studied, but what was the dictatorship and late Francoism, almost nothing. The pits are not the result of hot murders, of people who have died in war. They are the result of plans thought up in the offices to carry out a systematic and organized annihilation of all those who did not think like the regime.
What to demand?
It is a fact that the Law of Democratic Memory has allowed to be exhumed. Here, the Botanical government, first with Rosa Pérez Garijo, United Left, and then with the Provincial Council, with people from the PSOE, a very great effort was made to carry out many exhumations. We buy, the Province of Valencia, which is right-wing, continues to do some digging, it hasn't stopped completely. But the Law of Concord is a disgrace [driven by PP and Vox the 2024 in an attempt to repeal the previous Democratic Memory Act]. I think they should have done more, that the Law of Democratic Memory should also talk about the perpetrators, that summary judgments should be reviewed, it should be a more effective law, have more equipment and be faster, and that there should be a victim care office. When you're stuck inside something, it always seems to you that it is insufficient. but good, what was there before was nothing and we are already running against time. There are things in this law that are not being complied with, like the DNA bank. We need a DNA bank for the whole of Spain, that is effective and that allows the crossing of data, not only of retaliated people, also of stolen babies. And this is not being done for a lack of political will. We must demand more and better, continue giving the battle because, at least, what is there is fulfilled, but with maximums. There are people in the PSOE who are doing a good job. We are in a moment, with the right barking so much, that we need to support ourselves within the left, without losing sight of what we have to claim.
watching this one revival totalitarianism that is spreading across Europe, there is a rush to exhume before it arrives (ultra)right to the Spanish government?
No, there is no rush. Right now, almost nothing is being exhumed. For example, Gandia is waiting for some money to move those niches we talked about earlier, and how everything is a matter of will… The city council has the will to do so, it would take the will of the Provincial Council to put in the money. But I hope the right does not win. More than in a hurry in case the right comes, we are hoping that the left will return and be bolder and come with more momentum than in the previous legislature. Because she was a little timid. But memory does not end the day all the graves are exhumed; this is a part, but there are many things left: dignify spaces, remember social movements, of the Transition, of women, of the LGTBI group… Many things are still missing. Memory must always be made, so as not to forget what we have experienced.
If it hasn't been done yet, when the fascists hid in shame, ara they are embravits…
Civil society must also do things. We cannot expect the institutions to do everything. If civil society is not organized, he doesn't claim and he doesn't make his own… What we don't do, it won't be done. You have to fight, Always.
