A religious shrine or a monument to hate? The Valley of the Fallen, which houses General Franco’s tomb, has loomed over the landscape outside Madrid and Spain’s collective memory for decades. Now, 36 years after the death of the dictator, the government has appointed a commission to decide the site’s fate.
With the Spanish government now pondering what to do with the Valley of the Fallen, freelance journalist and Iberosphere contributor Nick Lyne visits the site of General Franco’s tomb outside Madrid and questions its status in modern Spain.
British historian Paul Preston’s latest book, ‘The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination during the Civil War and After’, makes an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the Spanish Civil War, and the systematic policy of rape, murder and repression carried out by Franco’s forces.
The ‘División Azul’, a Spanish force that fought alongside the German army against Russia in World War II, has mostly been overlooked by history books and filmmakers. A new book by Jorge Martínez Reverte seeks to redress the balance.
Spain’s most famous and reviled magistrate has gone into exile. After years spent tackling big cases, his attempts to probe the crimes of the Franco era appear to have brought his career in Spain to a premature end.
The sixth anniversary of the 2004 Madrid bombings is a reminder of how a terrorist attack helped set the tone of Spanish politics. Moreover, the divisions it highlighted are just as visible today, as the country stubbornly refuses to face up to its recent past.
© 2012
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