Beyond mass graves: exhuming Francoist concentration camps

Abstract

As several historical investigations have revealed, between 130,000 and 150,000 Republicans were executed during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and Franco’s dictatorship (1939–1977). The Francoist repressive strategy – unleashed after the coup d’état of 17 July 1936 – developed complex mechanisms of physical and psychological punishment. The continuing subjugation of those still living was enacted through concentration camps, prisons and forced labour. During the War and Franco’s dictatorship, there were nearly three hundred concentration camps, and between 367,000 and 500,000 prisoners went through those camps. During the transition to democracy, neither the State nor the judiciary investigated mass crimes connected to the repression and execution of left-wing Republicans. After Franco’s death, some family groups recovered some of these bodies buried in unmarked mass graves without scientific involvement. In the year 2000, the first scientific exhumations took place, and since then, more than 400 mass graves have been opened, and up to 9.000 bodies have been recovered.

The memory of the victims of Franco’s violence has been mainly centralised on mass graves. The opening of mass graves has positioned the Spanish Civil War case within the international sphere of human rights violations and has also opened a new window of opportunity for the analysis of Francoist concentration camps. In this article, I provide a holistic study of mass graves that combines archaeology and forensic anthropology with historical and ethnographic research in order to examine, in detail, both the burials and the broader landscape of the repression. In this contribution, I focus on the Concentration Camp of Castuera, in southwestern Spain, a forgotten campscape, and show how mass graves, which have become widely known as sites of research and commemoration in Spain, were closely related to the camps’ complex repressive system. My results have allowed me to conduct an integrated analysis of this context of political violence. I conclude that archaeology and forensic anthropology have played a crucial role in elucidating the functioning and social reality of Spanish camps, whilst enabling new narratives about past Francoist repression.