The Silence of Others reveals the epic struggle of victims of Spain’s 40-year dictatorship under General Franco as they continue to seek justice four decades into democracy. Filmed over six years, the film follows the survivors organizing the groundbreaking “Argentine Lawsuit” to fight a state-imposed amnesia of crimes against humanity, where the emotional court battle uncovers a country still divided over its fascist history.

Aguilar, Paloma. Politics of Memory. Transitional Justice in Democratizing Societies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
The book explores the important aspect of transitional politics, assessing how Portugal, Spain, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Germany after reunification, Russia, the Southern Cone of Latin America and Central America, as well as South Africa, have confronted legacies of repression.

Aguilar, Paloma. “The Timing and the Scope of Reparation, Truth and Justice Measures: A Comparison of the Spanish, Argentinian and Chilean Cases.” In Building a Future on Peace and Justice. Studies on Transitional Justice, Peace and Development. The Nuremberg Declaration on Peace and Justice.Ambos, Kai, Judith Large and Marieke Wierda, ed. Berlín: Springer, 2009.
This book addresses these dilemmas through a thorough overview of the current state of legal obligations; discussion of the need for a holistic approach including development; analysis of the implications of the coming into force of the ICC; and a series of "hard" case studies on internationalized and local approaches devised to navigate the tensions between peace and justice.

Encarnación, Omar G. “Justice in Times of Transition: Lessons from the Iberian Experience.” In Center for European Studies Working Paper Series, no.173, 2009.
This essay challenges this common assumption with empirical evidence from the Iberian Peninsula, where the global wave of democratization of the late twentieth century was born. In Portugal, political trials and bureaucratic purges intended to cleanse the state and society of the authoritarian past nearly derailed the transition to democracy by descending into a veritable political witch-hunt. In Spain, by contrast, forgetting and moving on prevailed, an approach that facilitated the country’s emergence as the paradigmatic example of a successful democratic transition.

Espinosa Maestre, Francisco. Shoot the Messenger?: Spanish Democracy and the Crimes of Francoism: From the Pact of Silence to the Trial of Baltasar Garzón. Translated by Richard Barker. East Sussex: Sussex Academic Press, 2013.
Judge Baltasar Garzon achieved international prestige in 1998 when he pursued the perpetrators of crimes committed in Argentina against Spanish citizens and began proceedings for the arrest of the Chilean ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet. But, when Garzon transferred his attention to his Spanish homeland, he was put on trial for opening an investigation into crimes committed by Francoists.

Faber, Sebastiaan and James D. Fernández, “The War Before the Lights Went Out: An Interview with Helen Graham.” In The Alba Volunteer. Accessed June 1, 2012
http://www.albavolunteer.org/2010/03/the-war-before-the-lights-went-out-an-interview-with-helen-graham/
An interview with Helen Graham, the most prominent English-speaking historian of twentieth-century Spain.

Faber, Sebastiaan. Memory Battles of the Spanish Civil War: History, Fiction, Photography. Nashville: Vanderbilt UP, 2018.
The ability to forget the violent twentieth-century past was long seen as a virtue in Spain, even a duty. But the common wisdom has shifted as increasing numbers of Spaniards want to know what happened, who suffered, and who is to blame. Memory Battles of the Spanish Civil War shows how historiography, fiction, and photography have shaped our views of the 1936-39 war and its long, painful aftermath.

Faber, Sebastiaan & Bécquer Seguín, “Spaniards Confront the Legacy of Civil War and Dictatorship.” The Nation 18 July 2016.
Four decades after the transition to democracy, families victimized by Francoist repression have organized in a quest for justice.

FERRÁNDIZ, Francisco. Unburials, Generals, and Phantom Militarism:
Engaging with the Spanish Civil War Legacy. 2019.
This paper is based on a 16-year-long ethnography of mass grave exhumations in contemporary Spain and deals with the tortuous, painful, much-disputed, and incomplete unmaking of a concrete and massive militaristic inscription of Spain: that related to its last internal war (1936–1939) and subsequent dictatorship (1939–1975).

Graham, Helen. The Spanish Civil War. A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Amid the many catastrophes of the twentieth century, the Spanish Civil War continues to exert a particular fascination among history buffs and the lay reader alike. This Very Short Introduction integrates the political, social and cultural history of the Spanish Civil War.

Graham, Helen. The War and Its Shadow: Spain's Civil War in Europe's Long Twentieth Century. East Sussex: Sussex Press, 2014, Kindle Edition.
In Spain today, its civil war remains 'the past that will not pass away.' The long shadow of World War II also brings back to central focus its most disquieting aspects, revealing to a broader public the stark truth already known by specialist historians - that in Spain, as in the many other internecine wars that would soon convulse Europe, war was waged predominantly upon civilians: millions were killed, not by invaders and strangers, but by their own compatriots, including their own neighbors.

Graham, Helen. “After the Fear Was Over? What Came After Dictatorships in Spain, Greece and Portugal.” In The Oxford Handbook of Postwar European History, Stone, Dan ed. London: Oxford University Press, 2012.
What Spain, Greece, and Portugal have in common in the twentieth century is the manner in which their internal processes of change – rural to urban, agrarian to industrial – were intervened in and inflected at crucial moments and with enduring effect by the force of international political agendas.

Hooper, John. The New Spaniards. London: Penguin, 2006.
The restoration of democracy in 1977 heralded a period of intense change that continues today. Spain has become a land of extraordinary paradoxes in which traditional attitudes and contemporary preoccupations exist side by side. Focusing on issues which affect ordinary Spaniards, from housing to gambling, from changing sexual mores to rising crime rates. John Hooper's fascinating study brings to life the new Spain of the twenty-first century.

Kaufman, Dan. 2011. “A Secret Archive: On the Mexican Suitcase.” The Nation 24 Jan.
http://www.thenation.com/article/secret-archive-mexican-suitcase/
The 4,500 images in the recently discovered Mexican Suitcase deepen our understanding of photojournalism as well as the complexities of the Spanish Civil War.

Payne Stanley G., and Jesús Palacios. Franco: A Personal and Political Biography. University of Wisconsin Press, 2018.
Franco: A Personal and Political Biography depicts his early life, explains his career and rise to prominence as an army officer who became Europe’s youngest interwar brigadier general in 1926, and then discusses his role in the affairs of the troubled Second Spanish Republic (1931–36). The authors examine in detail how Franco became dictator and how his leadership led to victory in the Spanish Civil War that consolidated his regime. They also explore Franco’s role in the great repression that accompanied the Civil War—resulting in tens of thousands of executions—and examine at length his controversial role in World War II. This masterful biography highlights Franco’s metamorphoses and adaptations to retain power as politics, culture, and economics shifted in the four decades of his dictatorship.

Paul Preston is the world's foremost historian on twentieth-century Spain. A professor at the London School of Economics, he lives in London. His major works include the three following titles.

Preston, Paul. Franco: A Biography. BasicBooks, 1994.
Preston’s book is considered a definitive biography of the Spanish military leader whose authoritarian rule extended from the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939 to his death in 1975.

Preston, Paul.The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain. London: Harper Collins, 2012.
Evoking such classics as Anne Applebaum’s Gulag and Robert Conquest’s The Great Terror, The Spanish Holocaust sheds light on one of the darkest and most unexamined eras of modern European history. As Spain finally reclaims its historical memory, a full picture can now be drawn of the atrocities of Franco’s Spain―from torture and judicial murders to the abuse of women and children. Paul Preston provides an unforgettable account of the systematic terror carried out by Spain’s fascist government.

Resina, Joan Ramon, ed. Disremembering the Dictatorship: The Politics of Memory since the Spanish Transition to Democracy. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2000.
Most accounts of the Spanish transition to democracy have been celebratory exercises at the service of a stabilizing rather than a critical project of far-reaching reform.

Roht-Arriaza, Naomi. The Pinochet Effect. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.
The 1998 arrest of General Augusto Pinochet in London and subsequent extradition proceedings sent an electrifying wave through the international community. This legal precedent for bringing a former head of state to trial outside his home country signaled that neither the immunity of a former head of state nor legal amnesties at home could shield participants in the crimes of military governments

The Spanish Civil War: Reaction, Revolution, and Revenge.W. W. Norton & Company, 2007.
This surging history recounts the struggles of the 1936 war in which more than 3,000 Americans took up arms. Tracking the emergence of Francisco Franco's brutal (and, ultimately, extraordinarily durable) fascist dictatorship, Preston assesses the ways in which the Spanish Civil War presaged the Second World War that ensued so rapidly after it.
The attempted social revolution in Spain awakened progressive hopes during the Depression, but the conflict quickly escalated into a new and horrific form of warfare. As Preston shows, the unprecedented levels of brutality were burned into the American consciousness as never before by the revolutionary war reporting of Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, Herbert Matthews, Vincent Sheean, Louis Fischer, and many others. Completely revised, including previously unseen material on Franco's treatment of women in wartime prisons, The Spanish Civil War is a classic work on this pivotal epoch.

The Triumph of Democracy in Spain. Methuen, 1986.
The Triumph of Democracy in Spain tells a gripping story of the tortuous creation of Spain's constitutional monarchy. The book provides an authoritative account of the tribulations of the forces of progress, beginning in 1969 with the disintegration of Franco's dictatorship and ending with the remarkable Socialist election victory in 1982.

Shulman, Aaron. The Age of Disenchantments: The Epic Story of Spain's Most Notorious Literary Family and the Long Shadow of the Spanish Civil War. HarperCollins, 2019.
A gripping narrative history of Spain’s most brilliant and troubled literary family—a tale about the making of art, myth, and legacy—set against the upheaval of the Spanish Civil War and beyond In this absorbing and atmospheric historical narrative, journalist Aaron Shulman takes us deeply into the circumstances surrounding the Spanish Civil War through the lives, loves, and poetry of the Paneros, Spain’s most compelling and eccentric family, whose lives intersected memorably with many of the most storied figures in the art, literature, and politics of the time—from Neruda to Salvador Dalí, from Ava Gardner to Pablo Picasso to Roberto Bolaño.

Tusell, Javier. Spain: From Dictatorship to Democracy. Wiley, 2007.
This comprehensive survey of Spain’s history looks at the major political, social, and economic changes that took place from the end of the Civil War to the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Gordon, Mary. There Your Heart Lies. Pantheon Books, 2017.
From the award-winning, much loved writer: a deeply moving novel about an American woman's place during the Spanish Civil War, the lessons she took from it, and how her story will shape her granddaughter's path

Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. Scribner, 1996.
Published in 1940, For Whom the Bell Tolls tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains of Spain. In his portrayal of Jordan’s love for the beautiful Maria and his superb account of El Sordo’s last stand, in his brilliant travesty of La Pasionaria and his unwillingness to believe in blind faith, Hemingway surpasses his achievement in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms to create a work at once rare and beautiful, strong and brutal, compassionate, moving, and wise.

Orwell, George. Homage to Catalonia. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010.
Homage to Catalonia is both a memoir of Orwell's experience at the front in the Spanish Civil War and a tribute to those who died in what he called a fight for common decency. Originally published in the United Kingdom in 1938.

Sansom, C. J. Winter in Madrid: A Novel. Penguin Books, 2009.
September 1940: the Spanish Civil War is over, Madrid lies in ruin, while the Germans continue their march through Europe, and General Franco evades Hitler’s request that he lead his broken country into yet another war. Into this uncertain world comes a reluctant spy for the British Secret Service, sent to gain the confidence of Sandy Forsyth, an old school friend turned shady Madrid businessman. Meanwhile, an ex-Red Cross nurse is engaged in a secret mission of her own. Through this dangerous game of intrigue, C. J. Sansom’s riveting tale conjures a remarkable sense of history unfolding and the profound impact of impossible choices.

Archer, Jules, and Brianna DuMont. The Dictators: Who They Were and How They Influenced Our World. Sky Pony Press, 2016.
History has shown that dictators often share similarities in the ways they come to power, hold power, and topple from power. The Dictators is a fascinating presentation of eighteen of this century’s most powerful dictators, representing fourteen countries. Their lives, political and social theories, and their achievements, good and bad, are carefully examined. Learn how men such as Lenin, Hitler, and Franco influenced their people and changed the world, and discover why a country will accept and support the rule of a dictator. The ideological and practical conflicts between dictatorships and democracies are carefully laid out within the pages of this book.

Somervill, Barbara A. Spain. Children's Press, 2012.
An overview of the country of Spain: its people, culture, government, history, and natural environments.

Taus-Bolstad, Stacy. Spain in Pictures. Lerner Publications, 2004.
In its history, wars and economic hardships have slowed Spain's development. Despite this, Spain has been able to modernize its factories, and is creating a strong democratic government.

Gonzalez, Christina Diaz. A Thunderous Whisper. Yearling, 2013.
The sleepy little market town of Guernica is destroyed by Nazi bombers. In one afternoon Ani loses her city, her home, her mother. But in helping the other survivors, Ani gains a sense of her own strength. And she and Mathias make plans to fight back in their own unique way.

Mariconda, Barbara. Bird with the Heart of a Mountain. Skyscape, 2013.
Set during the turmoil of the Spanish Civil War, sixteen-year-old Drina yearns to dance flamenco. When she dances, she forgets who she is. She forgets what seems to be her legacy: I am nothing. I belong nowhere. Why does her mother forbid her to dance, the very thing that makes her feel alive? She wonders about the secrets her mother holds, about the rumored life she had before Drina was born--a story that somehow still holds them both prisoner.

Wilson, John. Lost Cause. Orca Book Publishers, 2012.
Steve thinks a trip to Europe is out of the question—until he hears his grandfather's will. Suddenly he's off to Spain, armed with only a letter from his grandfather that sends him to a specific address in Barcelona. There he meets a girl named Laia and finds a trunk containing some of his grandfather's possessions, including a journal he kept during the time he fought with the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. Steve decides to trace his grandfather's footsteps through Spain, and with Laia's help, he visits the battlefields and ruined towns that shaped his grandfather's young life, and begins to understand the power of history and the transformative nature of passion for a righteous cause.

Aguilar, Paloma. Políticas de la Memoria y Memorias de la Política(“Politics of Memory and Memory of Politics”). Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 2008.
Paloma Aguilar's new book explores how political science can combine theoretical acuity with overwhelming historical documentation and careful survey analysis.

Aróstegui, Julio, ed. Franco, La Represión como Sistema(“Franco, Repression as a System”). Barcelona: Flor del Viento Ediciones, 2012.
Far from being based on the Law, the foundation of Franco's power was always repression, the extra-political coercion of those governed through non-legitimate violence, with results that went from the summary execution of many enemies to prison detention, estrangement, seizure of property, forced labor, etc.

Duva, Jesús and Natalia Junquera. Vidas Robadas(“Stolen Lives”). Madrid: Santillana Ediciones Generales, 2012.
When justice forgets victims, it ceases to be justice to become an instrument of impunity. This book puts voice and form to the hope of the victims.

González Duro, Enrique. Las Rapadas. El Franquismo contra la Mujer (“Shaved women. Francoism against Women”). Madrid: Siglo XXI de España Editores, 2012.
A book about women in Spain during the Francoism era.

Vega Sombría, Santiago. La Política del Miedo. El Papel de la Represión en el Franquismo (“Politics of Fear. The Role of Repression in Francoism”). Barcelona: Crítica, 2011.
Repression is usually considered as a consequence of the civil war and the violence generated by the conflict on both sides. But Santiago Vega Sombría now offers us a new and very different perspective, based on a global analysis of the role that repression played as an essential element of the state and the Francoist political system. It is not just about the deaths, this is about the executions and the murders that from July 1936 to September 1975 fulfilled the function of paralyzing any opposition to terror, but of studying together the various ways in which he implemented a fear policy.

This resource was created, in part, with the generous support of the Open Society Foundation and Latino Public Broadcasting.