Catalonia has exhumed in 22 years less than 10% of its Civil War graves

But a few days later it was discovered that De la Torriente’s body was not there. Neither yours nor any other: there was no grave in the planned place. “We were sure that it was there & rdquor ;, affirms the current director general of Democratic Memory of the Generalitat, Toni Font. There were several historical sources that attested to it. For Font, the case of the Cuban journalist is an example of the complexities involved in the work of exhuming graves from the Civil War to try to recognize victims that have been neglected until now.

The case of De la Torriente appears in the BOE of July 2 of last year. The State paid for the 8,712 euros that the Generalitat spent on the failed exhumation. But there is other information that also appears that day in the Official State Gazette that they raise their eyebrows at the associations that fight for Democratic Memory in Catalonia.

Above all, the fact that the Generalitat has only intervened -the verb used to cite the exhumations- 59 graves between the years 2000 and 2020. According to the most recent calculations, today there are already 61, two more, but the figure still seems low compared to the 671 graves that the Government itself calculates there are in Catalonia. Of these, the location of 324 is confirmed and that of 347 is probable. In total, less than 10% of these locations have been intervened in 22 years.

“The number of exhumations is completely insufficient, because I am sure there are many more. In the Ebro, for example, there are many to mark yet & rdquor ;, assures Roger Heredia, president of the Association of the DNA Bank of the Disappeared of the Civil War. The entity criticizes, for example, that the number of intervened graves is proportionally much higher in the Valencian Community, Navarra or even Castilla y León (where the right has governed for decades) than in Catalonia. “Without making so much noise, more progress has been made there than here”Heredia maintains.

The Generalitat defends itself alleging that the typology of the graves is different in Catalonia than in many other parts of Spain. “In the rest of the state we find pits of repression, because the military uprising won in minute one. They took the political and union leaders and shot them, and they are in the cemeteries. The oral tradition remembers that on such a day they executed such people and where they are. In Catalonia, a war zone, it’s another story”, says CEO Font.

Several associations also criticize the methodology that the Generalitat has followed to exhume the graves. So does the PSC deputy Ferran Pedret, very involved in the struggle of the descendants of the disappeared victims of the war to find their relatives. “Catalonia has to get its act together, because we need to open pits as quickly as possible. In this way, the decision of the Generalitat to entrust the works to a single company does not help speed them up” he says. Heredia agrees: “It’s a mistake. A few years ago, a project between the University of Barcelona and the Rovira i Virgili University of Tarragona was submitted to the competition. But, in addition to the universities, they could activate the councils, the regional councils… I have the feeling that we are idling when we could be going in sixth and flat out”.

The Generalitat also defends its way of acting in this case. “Whoever wants to enter the contest, but technically we cannot have four companies working, or as they do in other parts of the State, entities, companies, town halls… It is an operational issue, and it is the responsibility of the Generalitat. Imagine what happens as in the Mas de Santa Magdalena, and you find many more remains than expected. Well, the budget does not give. Companies have to have the capacity to do this work, which in many cases is huge,”, Font maintains.

The general director of Democratic Memory also affirms that if in the rest of Spain they exhume at a higher rate it may be because “in many cases genetic identifications are not being carried out,” unlike what happens in Catalonia. “From all the exhumations that we are doing, whenever possible we get a genetic code, which we can later use to return the remains to their relatives. Although sometimes you can’t because it is impossible to obtain a quality DNA sample& rdquor ;, he adds. It is a statement that is also refuted from the associations. “They use methods that are not the most current & rdquor ;, says Heredia.

In Catalonia, according to sources of those involved in these searches, at the beginning of this 2022 there are 6,223 registered in the census of missing persons; Genetic samples have been taken from 2,684 relatives; 803 individuals have been studied and 61 genetic identifications have been made; 545 individuals have been recovered (between the 195 prior to the 2017 Pit Plan and the 350 after it); and in the exhumations, until September 2020, 3,767 objects had been rescued.

Despite the setbacks that have occurred, the associations do not give up. In the case of Pablo de la Torriente, for example, the Amical entity of the International Brigades of Catalonia (ABIC) recalls that what is known for sure is that “his embalmed remains, pending transfer to his native Cuba, were removed of the provisional niche” which they originally occupied in the Montjuïc cemetery. “His case is not the only one. We are aware that two Italian brigade members, Guido Picelli and Antonio Cerni, are also somewhere in the cemeterycurrently unidentified & rdquor ;, says Eduard Amoroux, president of ABIC.

The two Italians already have a tombstone that remembers them on Montjuïc, and the Parma authorities participated in a tribute act last October. “Our association will take steps to place, in agreement with the Cuban consulate, one in memory of De la Torriente & rdquor ;, reveals Amoroux. It will be a provisional honorswaiting for the remains of the journalist to appear.