On the opposite side of the cemetery to the general\u00edsimo\u2019s mausoleum is the grave of his right-hand man Luis Carrero Blanco, whose life and tenure as prime minister were brought to a sudden end by a bomb which blew his car more than 30 metres into the air in 1973. Also buried in the cemetery are the murderous Dominican dictator, Rafael Le\u00f3nidas Trujillo, and Carlos Arias Navarro \u2013 known as the \u201cButcher of M\u00e1laga\u201d for his brutal repressions during the Spanish civil war.<\/p>\n
It was Arias who, 50 years ago on Thursday, broke the news of the dictator\u2019s death to the nation in a famous television broadcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cSpaniards, Franco has died,\u201d said the grief-stricken prime minister. \u201cThe exceptional man who, before God and before history, assumed the immense responsibility for the most demanding and sacrificial service to Spain<\/a>, has given his life, burned day by day, hour by hour, in the fulfilment of a transcendental mission.\u201d<\/p>\n Half a century on, the deeds and legacy of the man whose military coup against the Republican government ushered in a four-decade dictatorship built around the authoritarian ideology of National Catholicism, continue to haunt, divide and confuse 21st-century Spain.<\/p>\n The current, socialist-led government, which has continued the work of its predecessors by introducing democratic memory legislation<\/a> designed to help the country come to terms with the Franco era, is using the 50th anniversary of his death to trumpet Spain\u2019s transformation<\/a> into a progressive modern European democracy.<\/p>\n But the year-long series of events is also intended to serve as a reminder of the potency of fascism at a time when the far right is once more on the march and is appealing to younger voters with no memory \u2013 and scant knowledge \u2013 of the dictatorship.<\/p>\n \u201cSurveys have shown us that about 24% or 25% of people aged 18 to 30 said they wouldn\u2019t mind living under an authoritarian regime,\u201d said Fernando Mart\u00ednez L\u00f3pez, a historian who serves as Spain\u2019s secretary of state for democratic memory.<\/p>\n A picture of Francisco Franco published about round the time of his military coup in 1936. Photograph: Bettmann\/Bettmann Archive<\/p>\n \u201cThat obviously led us to take the political decision to explain to young people what the dictatorship was. There is so much ignorance.\u201d His fears were borne out still further last month when another poll<\/a> revealed that more 21% of those surveyed felt the Franco era was \u201cgood\u201d or \u201cvery good\u201d.<\/p>\n Mart\u00ednez said schoolchildren of previous generations simply had not been taught about what really happened during the civil war and the subsequent dictatorship.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a whole generation \u2013 especially people between their 20s and the age of about 45, who have studied so little of all this,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019ve only studied it if they had teachers who were interested in it, and who brought it into their lessons. But now with the democratic memory law, it\u2019s obligatory.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, teachers in Spain have noticed that students who embrace the macho, misogynistic tropes of the \u201cmanosphere\u201d can also express pseudo-nostalgic admiration<\/a> for a dictatorship about whose realities they know next to nothing.<\/p>\n \u201cDictatorships aren\u2019t something from the middle ages,\u201d said \u00c1ngel V\u00edctor Torre\u200bs, Spain\u2019s minister for territorial policy and democratic memory. \u201cYoung people have a kind of disconnect. Quite often, when I tell young people that there was a forced labour camp for gay people in Fuerteventura, they don\u2019t believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n Much of the lack of knowledge can be traced back to the methods Spain used to patch up its open wounds after Franco\u2019s death. The 1977 amnesty law, which granted impunity to those who committed crimes during the civil war and under the Franco regime, was accompanied by a tacit social contract known as the \u201cpact of forgetting\u201d. The idea was to leave the past in the past and move on as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n People gather outside the entrance to the basilica in the Valley of Cuelgamuros, which once held the remains of former dictator Francisco Franco. Photograph: Violeta Santos Moura\/Reuters<\/p>\n The Spanish journalist, writer and historian Carlos Hern\u00e1ndez de Miguel, author of Franco\u2019s Concentration Camps, argues that while\u200b \u201cawful concessions\u201d made during the transition back to democracy may have been necessary, they should never have been allowed to remain in place for as long as they have.<\/p>\n \u201cThat allowed generations and generations of Spaniards to grow up without knowing what had happened in our country during the 20th century, or being brought up on a fictional tale that equated victims with torturers and democrats with fascists,\u201d he said. \u201cAll that hid the magnitude of Francoist repression: the jails; the murders; the torture; the concentration camps \u2013 all that erased the close links with Hitler\u2019s Germany and whitewashed a regime whose hands were stained with blood.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Headlines Europe<\/p>\n A digest of the morning’s main headlines from the Europe edition emailed direct to you every week day<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n More progress might have been made if a modicum of consensus were possible. But the governing Spanish Socialist Workers\u2019 party (PSOE) and the opposition conservative People\u2019s party (PP) have spent decades accusing each other of playing politics with the past.<\/p>\n The PP boasted of cutting Spain\u2019s historical memory budget to zero<\/a> when it was last in power and has grumbled that the government\u2019s democratic memory legislation serves only to \u201cdig up grudges\u201d. The party is ignoring the events planned to mark the beginning of the return to democracy. So, too, is the far-right Vox party, the third largest force in Spanish politics, which had dismissed the programme as an \u201cabsurd necrophilia that divides Spaniards\u201d.<\/p>\n Given the lack of common ground, anomalies that would elicit gasps of disbelief in many other modern European democracies have abounded. Although Franco\u2019s remains were removed from the Valley of the Fallen \u2013 now known as the Valley of Cuelgamuros and currently in the process of being \u201cresignified\u201d to become \u201ca place of memory\u201d \u2013 it was for years a pilgrimage site for those who wanted to mourn Franco\u2019s death each 20 November.<\/p>\n These days, those nostalgic for el Caudillo (the leader) and his reign can sate their appetites with merchandise from the online store of the National Francisco Franco Foundation (FNFF), which, until the government succeeds in its plan to shut it down<\/a>, will continue to exist to preserve and promote the dictator\u2019s legacy. A book titled 50 Years of Lies about Francisco Franco is on sale for \u20ac27 (\u00a324), while a FNFF water bottle costs \u20ac16 and a framed, black-and-white picture of the man himself is \u20ac60.<\/p>\n Other scars are less visible. Although the bodies of almost 9,000 people who were \u201cdisappeared\u201d under Franco have been exhumed in the past few years, the remains of a further 11,000 people who were murdered and buried in ditches or mass graves are still waiting to be recovered and identified. The bodies of thousands of others will never be found as their furtive or impromptu resting places have been forgotten, dug up or paved over.<\/p>\n There is also lingering frustration over the fact that relatives and historical memory associations have to apply for grants to recover bodies; the central government does not exhume them directly, largely because of Spain\u2019s highly decentralised system of regional governments.<\/p>\n Supporters of Franco gather in Madrid in2022 to commemorate the 47th aniversary of his death. Photograph: Pablo Bl\u00e1zquez Dom\u00ednguez\/Getty Images<\/p>\n And then there is the question of justice. The Spanish filmmaker Almudena Carracedo and her partner, Robert Bahar, spent six years making the award-winning 2018 documentary The Silence of Others<\/a>, which followed victims of the Franco regime as they sought to hold it to account internationally.<\/p>\n \u201cSpain has undoubtedly changed on many fronts to become a democratic society,\u201d said Carracedo. \u201cHowever, so many years later, we live with this seemingly invisible mantle of impunity that still pains and impacts victims of crimes of the Franco dictatorship deeply. The 2022 Democratic Memory law was able to bring to light the need for memory and truth, but the important third pillar \u2013 justice \u2013 is still blocked by the 1977 amnesty law that impedes victims from seeking redress for the crimes they or their families suffered.\u201d<\/p>\n Like many others, Carracedo feels that Spain\u2019s imperfect grasp of its own history has opened the door to revisionism and denialism<\/a>. If justice delayed is justice denied, then knowledge delayed is knowledge denied.<\/p>\n \u201cI would so love to say that Franco is dead,\u201d she said. \u201cBut today, with the resurgence of the alt-right, he is somehow still painfully present. And it\u2019s not something that comes out of the blue: all these youths who now raise their arms in fascist salutes were never really taught their history, and so they celebrate the myths they have heard. This fits a dangerous pattern of nostalgia that you see in many countries, not just Spain. \u2018We lived better under the dictator,\u2019 people say. It\u2019s a warning sign.\u201d<\/p>\n Quick GuideContact us about this storyShow The best public interest journalism relies on first-hand accounts from people in the know.<\/p>\n If you have something to share on this subject, you can contact us confidentially using the following methods.<\/p>\n Secure Messaging in the Guardian app<\/p>\n The Guardian app has a tool to send tips about stories. Messages are end to end encrypted and concealed within the routine activity that every Guardian mobile app performs. This prevents an observer from knowing that you are communicating with us at all, let alone what is being said.<\/p>\n If you don’t already have the Guardian app, download it (iOS<\/a>\/Android<\/a>) and go to the menu. 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