Sunday 27 March 2011

Jimena cenotaph unveiled yesterday

JIMENA (Press release)  A cenotaph in memory of those villagers who were executed during the Spanish Civil War and in the post-war years was unveiled yesterday in an inner courtyard of the cemetery at the castle. It includes 79 names, plus their age and the date and place they were executed, are based on the work carried out by historian José Manuel Algarbani, whose research was funded with a grant from the town hall. Space has been left on the stonework to include other names as they are confirmed. The cenotaph is intended as a place where relatives and descendants of the victims can come to remember them, particularly for those who still do not know where exactly they may be buried, though it is suspected they may be in common graves.>In his address, Mayor Pascual Collado said, "This monument must serve to dignify the people who were executed, to remember them, to recover part of the history of our people and for their families to have somewhere to lay flowers, to break the silence of so many years and to somehow compensate for the tears shed in the darkness of oppression."

Collado also said there was still a lot of work to be done in this regard, not just in Jimena but also in Spain as a whole. He urged the Junta's Commissioner for the Historical Memory. as well as other institutions and associations to 'become more involved' in the matter.

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