for the Spain they believed to be better: in Zaragoza

In Zaragoza, The Torrero Cemetery Monument For The Heroes and Martyrs of Zaragoza:  fallen in the freedom crusade, 1936-39 According to Julián Casanova ("The Torrero cemetery: a place of memories", Zaragoza City Council) “the remains of several thousand people killed during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39 and under the dictatorship of Franco lie in this cemetery.” Casanova makes a presentation of Torrero cemetery as a place of memories: “We remember them today, after decades of silence and neglect, offering information about where they were executed and the graves in which they were buried. And along with that past, the memories of the victors of the Civil War also appear, who honoured with monuments and commemoratives plaques only their own dead, only the “heroes and martyrs fallen in the Glorious Crusade”. They are different memories of that war and of the long post-war period- some omnipresent, while other silenced. There are six different locations that evoque the time of the forgotten and the remembered from July 1936 until November 2010”. He also makes a presentation  of the monument “For The Heroes and Martyrs of Zaragoza: fallen in the freedom crusade, 1936-39”: “The decree of General Franco of 16 November 1938, before the Civil War had ended, proclaimed that 20 November would be an annual national “day of mourning” in memory of the execution on that day of José Antonio Primo de Rivera in 1936. The decree established “in keeping with an agreement with the authorities of the Church”, that “the walls of every parish will carry an inscription containing the names of their Fallen, whether in this Crusade or whether victims of the Marxist revolution”. This was the beginning of the placement of plaques in churches and of the construction of commemorative monuments to the fallen. By the end of the war, Spain was filled with the memories of the victors. In Zaragoza, in 1941, the mayor at the time, Francisco Caballero, proposed “eternalizing the memory of our best” and one year later, the municipal corporation held a design competition for the erection of this funerary monument. After several unviable proposals, due to their ambitious and ver costly construction, this monument topped by a great cross was finished in 1954 and was placed in Plaza del Pilar, where the fountain of Hispanidad today stands, dedicated “For the heroes and martyrs of Zaragoza: fallen in the Freedom Crusade, 1936-39”. There, every 20 November until the end of the dictatorship, an event was held in homage to those “fallen in the Crusade”, in which the leading authorities of the National Movement participated. When the Plaza del Pilar underwent remodeling in 1990, the Urban Planning Department of the Zaragoza City Council proposed preserving the monument, moving it here to the main entry of the Torrero cemetery”. These photos were taken in September 2019. More information: Casanova,J. (2010): "The Torrero cemetery: a place of memories". Zaragoza: Zaragoza City Council