Hola amigos! It’s been yet another amazing, eye-opening week here in Madrid. I’m honestly not sure how I am functioning right now - between classes, homework, going out, meeting new people, trying new foods, mini excursions around Spain, and trying to navigate my way around a new city in general, sleep has been hard to come by. But like they say, no one looks back on their life and remembers the nights they got plenty of sleep. So here I am, back in my homestay after yet another weekend of exciting adventures.
This week, I want to talk about Spanish history and how it affects Spaniards today. Being a political science and history double major at GW, the mixture of culture with history intrigues me. When thinking about contemporary European history, Americans often forget about Spain altogether, since we focus so much on the World Wars, the Holocaust, the Cold War, and other large-scale events as such. Many people forget that Spain endured a devastating Civil War from 1936-1939. In this case, unlike the American Civil War, the antagonists (Franco’s fascist political party) actually won, and Spain lived under harsh dictatorship for almost 40 years. When Franco died in 1975, the country transitioned mostly peacefully to a constitutional monarchy and has been that way ever since. Many older members of our host families (including my host mother) lived many years during Franco’s dictatorship. Some even have memories of the Civil War, passed down from their parents who witnessed it. My host mom knows very little about the war itself because although her father fought in it, he “refused to talk about it.” There is a certain historical memory that you can almost sense in the eyes of the older generation who lived through the horrors of that war. No one talks about it, and no one asks.
This past weekend I visited the Valle de los Caídos (Valley of the Fallen), a Catholic basilica and monument erected near the city of El Escorial, about an hour away from Madrid. To get there, you have to take a bus from El Escorial’s city center and drive up into the mountains. The monument was commissioned by Franco in 1940 to create a memorial for those who died in the Spanish Civil War. Hundreds of thousands of bodies – soldiers from both sides of the conflict – are entombed in mass graves surrounding the monument and basilica. It was built by Franco’s prisoners of war over a period of about 18 years. As my friends and I sat on the bus chatting about unimportant things, suddenly we all fell silent as we drove around a bend in the road and saw a massive cross on top of a mount of granite. We later learned the horizontal beam on the cross was two football fields wide, and the statue stood at 150 feet tall. As we approached the monument, an eerie feeling spread over the group. This monument was constructed by Franco to “honor” those who died for and against his cause, but built by his Republican prisoners of war in slavery. The view from the monument and basilica was absolutely breathtaking – we were surrounded by cavernous mountains and lush greenery, highlighted against a bright blue sky.
As we walked into the basilica, the doors closed behind us and everything suddenly became dark and cryptic. The church was beautiful in its own haunting way. However, it was clearly a show of Franco’s power. The statues of angels that lined the walls carried swords and spears and wore veils that covered their eyes completely. Two rooms with entrances to the tombs extended from each side of the altar. Beneath the alter was none other than Franco himself, buried underneath yet another giant cross. I sat down in disbelief to attempt to understand what was in front of me. I couldn’t comprehend how the many Spaniards around me could walk peacefully over and around the grave of a dictator who had most likely been responsible for the deaths of family members, friends, and acquaintances within their lifetimes. It seemed incredibly unjust that he was buried in a beautiful tomb in the center of the church, while the bodies of the fallen (those who died BECAUSE of him) were shoved carelessly into mass tombs surrounding him, that only those with special access could even see. I realized that this wasn’t really a memorial to the fallen. It was a monument to Franco himself, and the bodies served as a testament to all that he had “achieved” in his life as a general and a dictator.
I became so upset that I had to walk out. I sat down and thought about what I had seen, and was especially perplexed as to why so many Spaniards could visit this monument and not literally spit on Franco’s tomb. History is complicated. I understand now that sometimes the only way a group of people who witnessed atrocities can carry on is to try to forget. And that has definitely happened, to an extent, here in Spain. In Madrid, you can walk down the Calle de los Caídos de la División Azul (The Fallen of the Blue Division Street), which was named in honor of the Blue Division, a part of Franco’s army that volunteered to go fight alongside the Nazis in World War II. Many other streets are named after various generals, officers, and slogans from Franco’s regime, and they still have yet to be changed. I have learned a lot about historical memory by living here for just two and a half weeks. It has made me think about how Americans have responded to atrocities as well, such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and how different cultures react differently to devastating historical events. It seems that there is no “right” or “normal” way for a group of people to cope with tragedy. However, it is extremely important to learn from the past and eventually come to terms with it, so such tragedies don’t happen again.