Many were victims of Franco’s security forces, murdered during the height of the civil war. There are tens of thousands of other bodies still trapped in the basilica beneath where Franco used to lie. Because the monument is also a mass grave. When his body was removed, hundreds of his supporters gathered at the new cemetery to wield swastikas and Franco-era flags, and to perform the fascist salute in his honor.īut this isn’t just the story of an old mausoleum and the dictator who used to be buried there. Some even see him as the emblem of a traditional Spanish Catholic life, and some actually like his fascist ideology and would like to see it make a comeback. They argued there was no place in a democracy for a monument exalting a man who had tortured and killed thousands of Spaniards in the name of fascism.Īnd then in October 2019, Franco’s body was disinterred, his coffin packed into a helicopter, and then flown to a graveyard on the outskirts of the city to be reburied.ĭespite the atrocities he committed, Franco still has supporters in Spain. People began to push for the removal of Franco’s body. Photo by Richard Mortel (CC BY 2.0)Īs the decades passed after his death, anger about the monument grew. His body was buried under a huge stone slab. When Franco died, he became the Valley’s most notorious inhabitant. The Valley is synonymous with Francisco Franco, the general who ruled Spain from the end of its bloody civil war in 1939 until his death in 1975. And it’s likely the most controversial monument in Spain. This place is called the Valley of the Fallen. Beneath the cross, there’s a sprawling Benedictine monastery and a basilica carved out of the mountain. It’s so big you can see it from miles away. About an hour northwest of Madrid, an enormous stone crucifix rises 500 feet out of a rocky mountaintop.
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