How We Started

In 2010, the story of Spain’s “stolen children” began to come out. The story of these crimes, with roots in the early days of Franco’s rule, led us to explore the marginalization and silencing of victims of many Franco-era crimes, ranging from extrajudicial killings at the end of the Spanish Civil War to torture that took place as recently as 1975. As we began to learn more, we were baffled by basic questions: how could it be that Spain, unlike other countries emerging from repressive regimes, had had no Nuremberg Trials, no Truth and Reconciliation Commission, no national reckoning? Why, instead, was a “pact of forgetting” forged in Spain? And what were the consequences of that pact, 40 years into democracy, for the still-living victims of Franco’s dictatorship? When we began filming the process of the Argentine lawsuit in 2012, which challenged this status quo, few thought that it would amount to much. But as we filmed those early meetings, we could see that the lawsuit was stirring up something vital, transforming victims and survivors into organizers and plaintiffs and bringing out dozens, and then hundreds, of testimonies from all over Spain. As the number of testimonies snowballed, the case was building into a persuasive argument about crimes against humanity that demanded international justice. We thus discovered that The Silence of Others was going to be a story about possibilities, about trying to breach a wall, and that, rather than focusing on what had happened in the past, it would be all about the present and the future. For many of the plaintiffs, the case would offer the last opportunity in their lifetimes to be heard. Yet even as we set out filming those early meetings, we could scarcely have imagined that we would follow this story for six years.

Perspective and Process

The stories that we were uncovering touched each of us deeply: Almudena is a Spaniard whose parents were raised under Franco, and who grew up in Spain during the transition from dictatorship to democracy. Robert is an American who has been involved with human rights issues since he was 19, and the fight against Fascism during the Spanish Civil War had always been close to his heart.

Point-of-View

This was a film that had to work inside and outside Spain. It needed the cultural sensitivity, the shared subconscious, and intricate contextual details of a film made by a Spaniard, and Almudena, who was born just before Franco died, returned home to Spain, after 12 years in the US, to make this film. While most of the crew was Spanish, it was also crucial that there be an international team, and Robert’s outsider perspective greatly shaped the film, unpacking assumptions and making it bigger and more universal.

As Judge María Servini says near the end of the film, “If the judges in Spain could hear what I have heard, they would open these cases here, too”. Likewise, we hope that when people hear the stories that we have heard over the seven years of making The Silence of Others, and see the fear and the pain that we have seen, they too will view this less as a political issue, and more as a human rights – or just a human – issue.

—Almudena Carracedo and Robert Bahar, Directors and Producers, The Silence of Others

This guide is an invitation to dialogue. It is based on a belief in the power of human connection and designed for people who want to use The Silence of Others to engage family, friends, classmates, colleagues and communities. In contrast to initiatives that foster debates in which participants try to convince others that they are right, this document envisions conversations undertaken in a spirit of openness in which people try to understand one another and expand their thinking by sharing viewpoints and listening actively.

The discussion prompts are intentionally crafted to help a wide range of audiences think more deeply about the issues the film brings up. Rather than attempting to address them all, choose one or two that best meet your needs and interests. And be sure to leave time to consider taking action. Planning next steps can help people leave the room feeling energized and optimistic, even in instances when conversations have been difficult.

For more detailed event planning and facilitation tips, visitwww.pbs.org/pov/engage/.

The Silence of Others offers insight into grass-roots citizen activism that seeks to reverse the culture of forgetting that has helped cover up the crimes of Spain’s 40-year dictatorship under General Franco (1939-1975) and challenge the amnesty laws that have blocked the prosecution of the perpetrators. The film will be of special interest to people who want to explore the following topics:

• activism
• amnesty
• civil war
• civil rights
• crimes against humanity
• criminal justice
• democracy
• fascism
• forgiveness
• Franco
• Francoism
• historical amnesia
• historical erasure
• historical memory
• historical monuments
• human rights
• international law
• jurisprudence
• justice
• nationalism
• organizing
• The Pact of Forgetting
• peace
• political dissidence
• political monuments
• political organizing
• propaganda
• remembrance
• Spain
• state violence
• transitional justice
• universal jurisdiction

Carlos Slepoy Prada - a human rights lawyer working with survivors

Ana Mesutti - a human rights lawyer working with survivors

María Romilda Servini de Cubría - Argentine judge who took on Franco-era cases through universal jurisdiction (her role is known as an “investigating judge” which is similar to the function of a prosecutor in the US legal system)

María Martín - an elderly woman whose mother was murdered by Franco supporters and buried in a mass grave by the side of a country road

María Ángeles Martín - the daughter of María Martín

José María “Chato” Galante - an activist who as a student in the late 60’s was detained and tortured by former Franco regime policeman Antonio González Pacheco, aka “Billy the Kid”

Felisa “Kutxi” Echegoyen - an activist who was tortured by former Franco regime policeman Antonio González Pacheco, aka “Billy the Kid”

María Mercedes Bueno - an activist whose infant daughter is presumed to have been stolen at birth, as part of a baby-stealing scheme with origins in the early days of the Franco regime

Ascensión Mendieta - an elderly woman who fights to recover her father’s remains, a union leader killed at the end of the Spanish Civil War, from a mass grave

The Spanish Civil War and the Franco Regime

The Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, after a military coup led by General Francisco Franco attempted to overthrow the elected Republican government. In an era when fascist movements were seizing power across Europe, the conflict pitted a conservative Nationalist coalition of landowners, military leaders and the Catholic Church against left-leaning, working- and middle-class Republicans. Franco’s Nationalists received aid from Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, while the Republicans were backed by the Soviet Union, Mexico, and volunteer soldiers from around the world who would become known as the “international brigades.” The war lasted from 1936 and 1939 and claimed some 500,000 lives.

Unlike Germany and Italy’s fascist regimes, which were toppled during World War II, Spain remained under the grip of General Franco’s authoritarian regime from 1939 until the dictator’s death in 1975. The Franco regime, bolstered by the far-right political party Falange Española, the military and the Catholic church, ruled Spain through control of the media, military repression and brutal violence towards dissidents. According to one historian, Franco’s dictatorship stifled political engagement in Spain for generations. Those who did resist the regime—and many who were merely accused of disloyalty—often faced fatal consequences. Accounts of the eastly post-war years describe torture, public humiliation, mass rape, and routine executions of suspected Republicans. After executions, victims’ bodies were dumped in mass graves throughout the countryside; the bodies of an estimated 114,000 “disappeared” Spaniards remain missing.

Sources:

Grocott, Chris. “Review of Antonio Cazorla Sánchez, Fear and Progress: Ordinary Lives in Franco’s Spain, 1939-1975, (review no. 936).” Reviews in History, July 2010, https://reviews.history.ac.uk/review/936.

Hochschild, Adam. “Process of Extermination: ‘The Spanish Holocaust,’ by Paul Preston.” New York Times, 11 May 2012, https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/books/review/the-spanish-holocaust-by-paul-preston.html.

Taladrid, Stephania. “Spain’s Open Wounds.” The New Yorker, 10 January 2019, www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/spains-open-wounds.

The Transition and the Pact of Forgetting

When General Franco died in 1975, Spain faced many decisions about how to transition to a democracy. Among them, would the perpetrators of crimes against humanity during the 36-year dictatorship be brought to justice through a national process addressing truth, justice, reparation or guarantees of non-repetition (some of the elements of what is known as “transitional justice”)? In 1977, nearly all political parties agreed that the best way to move forward was to avoid looking back on the regime. These politicians agreed that Spaniards could only move forward by forging a national “Pact of Forgetting” that would allow perpetrators and victims to live together peaceably without “reopening old wounds.”

This willful collective amnesia was solidified following the 1977 Amnesty Law, which was passed by Spain’s first democratically elected Parliament in forty years. This law established amnesty not only for political prisoners but for all to all those who committed crimes during the Civil War and Franco dictatorship, shielding perpetrators from prosecution. The Amnesty Law contradicted several international treaties, treaties, which would later be ratified by Spain, that guarantee victims of human rights violations the right to legal recourse (these violations include political imprisonment, torture and execution, and child abuse).

Sources:

Ackar, Kadribasic. “Transitional Justice in Democratization Processes: The Case of Spain from an International Point of View,” International Journal of Rule of Law, Transitional Justice and Human Rights, 2010, p.125, https://books.google.com/books?id=_hp7nOXOBuIC&pg=PA132.

Hahn, Jonah. “Franco’s Forgotten Crimes.” Jacobin Magazine, 13 January 2019, https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/01/auschwitz-holocaust-madrid-franco-civil-war.

Taladrid, Stephania. “Spain’s Open Wounds.” The New Yorker, 10 January 2019, www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/spains-open-wounds.

Contesting Historical Memory

The 1977 Amnesty Law and its consequent “Pact of Forgetting” meant that, for decades, the Franco regime’s crimes were not subject to public debate, and to this day no perpetrator has been held accountable in Spanish courts. The public history of the 36-year regime was sanitized: human rights violations were omitted from school curricula, which helped perpetuate the narrative that both sides committed equivalent crimes and that the winners of the war (Franco and his supporters) were on the righteous side of history.

One of the most visible symbols of how historical memory is contested in Spain is the Valley of the Fallen, a gigantic monument outside of Madrid commissioned by Franco, which features a 150m cross (for comparison, this is taller than the Statue of Liberty). It was theoretically built in 1940 as a “national act of atonement” that would reconcile the crimes committed by both sides during the Civil War. To symbolize national unity, Franco removed the bodies of 33,847 victims from mass graves, without the consent or knowledge of their families, and reburied them anonymously in the Valley of the Fallen. The bodies of Nationalist soldiers were also interred in the monument, but they arrived in coffins inscribed with their names and the word “martyr.” Franco’s own body and that of the fascist Falange party founder José Antonio Primo de Rivera, who was executed in 1936, were buried in the central basilica in ornate tombs. Critics of the monument claim that it glorifies Franco and celebrates the Nationalist cause, and that it was constructed by political prisoners through forced labor. In October 2019, Spain’s government exhumed Franco’s body from the basilica and moved it to a regular cemetery to be buried with his wife and family.

Today, Spain lacks a state-sponsored museum explaining the history of the Civil War and the Franco regime, and some believe that the Valley of the Fallen should be converted into a memorial that reckons squarely with the regime’s crimes.

Sources:

Ackar, Kadribasic. “Transitional Justice in Democratization Processes: The Case of Spain from an International Point of View,” International Journal of Rule of Law, Transitional Justice and Human Rights, 2010, p.125, https://books.google.com/books?id=_hp7nOXOBuIC&pg=PA132.

Hahn, Jonah. “Franco’s Forgotten Crimes.” Jacobin Magazine, 13 January 2019, https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/01/auschwitz-holocaust-madrid-franco-civil-war.

Palmer, Alex W. “The Battle Over the Memory of the Spanish Civil War.”Smithsonian Magazine, July 2018, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/battle-memory-spanish-civil-war-180969338/.

Preston, Paul. “Spain feels Franco’s legacy 40 years after his death.” BBC.com, 20 November 2015, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34844939.

Strange, Hannah. “The Politics of a Long-Dead Dictator Still Haunt Spain.” The Atlantic, 14 October 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/10/franco-exhumation-spain/572929/.

The Franco Regime on Trial

The victims of Franco’s regime and their families have been fighting for justice for decades, both quietly and in an increasingly public movement. Many, like María Martín López, request nothing more than to reclaim their relatives’ remains for a proper burial. The first formal effort by Spain’s government to respond to these claims was in 2007, when Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero helped pass a Historical Memory Law. The law denounced the Franco regime, provided some possible aid for identification and exhumation of mass graves, offered token compensation to some of the relatives of people killed or tortured, and called for the renaming of streets in Spain named after Francoist leaders. However, many victims’ groups saw this law as insufficient and asserted that it is the State that must take responsibility for exhumations, not civil society.

Some have used activism, advocacy and the Spanish and international judicial systems to seek justice. Some families began to undertake limited exhumations in the early years of democracy (https://elpais.com/politica/2012/04/07/actualidad/1333834735_777733.html). Starting around 2000, historical memory associations began to form, the most prominent being The Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (ARMH), to investigate long-buried crimes and to advocate for justice on behalf of victims, with particular focus on pursuing exhumations. To date, these organizations, often with the help of families and volunteers have recovered over 8000 bodies from mass graves.

In 2008, Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón raised a direct challenge to the Pact of Forgetting when he ordered an investigation into Franco-era deeds “that could qualify as crimes against humanity.” He acknowledged that the dictator and his collaborators were responsible for “mass killings, torture and the systemic, general and illegal detentions of political opponents.” Although Spanish statutes of limitations forbid prosecution of crimes committed more than 20 years earlier, Judge Garzón declared that because bodies had not been found, the murders of over 114,000 people by the Franco regime were still open to investigation.

The surviving family of two brothers who were executed by the Franco regime, Manuel and Antonio Lapeña, filed a lawsuit in 2012 to remove their relatives’ remains from the Valley of the Fallen for reburial. The Spanish criminal court initially rejected the case due to the Amnesty Law, but the family re-filed citing a civil law that gave family members the right reclaim their deceased relatives’ property. The case made its way through local and national courts in Spain and beyond, including the European Court of Human Rights. In May 2016 a judge ruled that the Lapeñas had the right to receive their relatives’ remains, and ordered DNA tests to identify the bodies in the Valley’s mass grave. However, the case stirred controversy in Spain, especially in the Catholic Church, who objected that to exhume the bodies would disturb the remains of other victims.

Under the principle of universal jurisdiction, any country’s national court can prosecute an individual for serious international crimes. It is often invoked as a last resort when other legal options are not available. In 2010, several people, alongside civil society organizations in Argentina and Spain, filed an international lawsuit against Franco-era perpetrators in a Buenos Aires criminal court. (This lawsuit is the subject of The Silence of Others). In 2012 a platform/network of organizations was created (CeAQUA) to support the lawsuit and to collaborate with the two lawyers leading the case in Spain, the late Carlos Slepoy (who had been part of the team behind Pinochet’s detention) and Ana Messuti. Over the course of several years, the Argentine judge involved in the case, María Romilda Servini de Cubría, has issued arrest warrants for several living perpetrators including alleged torturers, former cabinet members and doctors implicated in cases of stolen children, but Spanish courts have refused to either extradite the indicted or judge them in Spain.

In recent years, Spain’s political tides have perhaps been turning. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who assumed power in 2018, promised to pursue justice for Franco’s victims by expanding the Historical Memory Law of 2007. Shortly after his inauguration, the Sánchez administration announced its intent to open up thousands of mass graves across Spain and to support a truth commission. Their later proposals, however, didn’t implement these proposals and they have refused to allow the extraditions requested by Judge Servini. In September 2018 Parliament approved Sánchez’s plans to exhume Franco’s remains from the Valley of the Fallen, as a step towards transforming the monument into a site that honors Franco’s victims and acknowledges his regime’s atrocities. In September 2019, Spain’s Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the exhumation could move forward, and in October 2019 the exhumation took place.

Right-wing parties and the Catholic Church fiercely oppose efforts to modify the monument;

many victims’ groups point out that even if Franco’s body is successfully exhumed, there will remain thousands of mass graves waiting to be exhumed, thousands of people who were tortured and whose torturers have never been investigated, thousands of possible cases of stolen children, and a myriad of other crimes to be investigated and reparations to be made. Ultimately, Spaniards are still divided about how best to acknowledge and remedy the crimes of the Franco regime.

Sources:

Hahn, Jonah. “Franco’s Forgotten Crimes.” Jacobin Magazine, 13 January 2019, https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/01/auschwitz-holocaust-madrid-franco-civil-war.

Nash, Elizabeth. “Spanish 'memory law' reopens deep wounds of Franco era.” The Independent, 10 October 2007, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/spanish-memory-law-reopens-deep-wounds-of-franco-era-394552.html.

Palmer, Alex W. “The Battle Over the Memory of the Spanish Civil War.”Smithsonian Magazine, July 2018, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/battle-memory-spanish-civil-war-180969338/.

Strange, Hannah. “The Politics of a Long-Dead Dictator Still Haunt Spain.” The Atlantic, 14 October 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/10/franco-exhumation-spain/572929/.

Taladrid, Stephania. “Spain’s Open Wounds.” The New Yorker, 10 January 2019, www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/spains-open-wounds.

Tremlett, Giles. “Franco repression ruled as a crime against humanity.” The Guardian, 16 October 2008, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/oct/17/spain

Immediately after the film, you may want to give people a few quiet moments to reflect on what they have seen or pose a general question (examples below) and give people some time to themselves to jot down or think about their answers before opening the discussion:

• Why do you think the film is named The Silence of Others?
• What did you learn from this film? Did you gain a new insight?
• Describe a moment or scene in the film that you found particularly disturbing or moving. What was it about that scene that was especially compelling for you?
• Did anything in the film surprise you? Was anything familiar?
• If you could ask anyone in the film a single question, whom would you ask and what would you want to know?

Forgetting vs. Forgiving

After Franco’s death, parties both on the left and right established the so-called “Pact of Forgetting” following the 1977 Amnesty Law, which politically formalized a path of moving onwards from the era of Franco’s reign. In what ways in the film did you notice that Spanish people have “forgotten” Franco-era history? What do you notice in the interviews with Spaniards in the town square? What does it seem has been the impact of forgetting?

In the film, activists in the lawsuit share their perspectives on forgiveness and forgetting. “Forgetting does not lead to forgiveness...it generates more hatred,'' says one activist. Ascensión Mendieta says “you can forget, but you can’t forgive.” How are forgetting and forgiving different? How are they related? What does it feel like to forget something that has happened in the past? What does it feel like to forgive a person?

Attorney Carlos Slepoy states that “forgiveness is an individual matter. A state cannot forgive crimes.” Do you think it is possible for a government to forgive a grave crime? What might forgiveness from the perspective of a government look like? Can you think of any examples of when you have witnessed a government forgiving a perpetrator for their crimes?

Why might it be important to remember historical events, instead of forgetting them? How does our past help us learn? Reflect on an historical event in your own country or community. How has learning about this past allowed you or the people around you to grow or even move on?

“Those who don’t want this to go to trial are relying on time to take the victims away,” says lawyer Ana Messuti. What does her statement reveal about the relationship between victims’ testimonies and the larger effort to forget Spain’s past?

The narrator explains that “the world chose to forget, embracing Franco in his fight against communism.” The film shows him shaking hands with U.S. presidents Eisenhower and Nixon, Papal Nuncio Antoniutti, French president de Gaulle and U.N. Secretary General Waldheim who all embraced Franco in what he painted as his fight against Communism. In what ways does it seem the international community has forgotten the crimes of Franco and his regime? What might happen if the international community actively remembered Spain’s civil war and Franco’s lasting impact?

In the film, UN Special Rapporteur Pablo de Greiff says “the victims, rightly, do not forget”. Does it seem possible for all Spaniards to forget and move on from what happened during Franco’s rule? Why would the ability to forget be different for different people?

Trauma of Everyday Living When the Regime is Still Memorialized

The protagonists of the film fight to get street names changed to no longer commemorate Franco and his regime. Why do you think it is important to the victims to have the names of streets changed? What do you think is the impact of changing the names? How might changing the names impact the everyday experiences of victims? What kind of message does this send to Spaniards? Have you witnessed similar name-changing in your own community or country? Share a bit about this experience.

There are relatively few memorials for the victims of the Franco regime installed in Spain. One monument, featuring four forlorn sculptures on a mountaintop, is featured regularly in the film. Much debate remains surrounding remaining symbols, icons, memorials to Franco’s regime and commemorative sculptures. What do you think is the impact of publicly visible artifacts that still memorialize Franco? What do you think is the effect of objects that tell the story of the victims? Why do these objects matter? Has your community had a debate around memorials or sculptures that commemorate history?

In the United States there has been a renewed interest and debate around removing Confederate monuments. What do you imagine or know to be the argument to keep the monuments? Why might people want them removed?

One of the repercussions of the lack of national reckoning with the past is that perpetrators continue to roam free. Chato, for example, shares how he lives near his torturer, “Billy the Kid”, who has never been investigated in Spain. Victims still are reminded every day of their trauma. How do you imagine this makes them feel? How might this dynamic prevent a process of forgiving and forgetting?

State Violence and Political Power

One of the complexities of prosecuting state violence is that the state controls the criminal justice system. Asks human rights lawyer Carlos Slepoy, “how can you serve justice for crimes committed by the state”? What do you think is the role of citizens to push back against their own government?

What do you consider the role of the international community in responding to a state’s violence against its own people?

The narrator explains that, “after Franco’s death, many of his police, judges, and politicians, simply continued on.” Maria Ángeles Martín adds that “it was the same institution. The same people. The same mayor.” How do you imagine the continuation of (former) Francoists in political power has impacted the victims' ability to seek justice? How do you imagine it has impacted Spain’s culture around forgetting the past?

Visiting a former secret detention center in Argentina was a very emotional moment for the activists and victims. “Seeing a school group here brings tears to our eyes,” explains Chato. “When will we see students in the General Security Headquarters saying, ‘Look, Chato was tortured here’”? Why might the state want to control how students are educated about Spain’s past?

The Power of Organizing

Despite many years of pain, and the inability to open a case within Spain, a group of victims-turned-activists realized they could make a case in a foreign court to prosecute crimes against humanity, bypassing Spanish amnesty restrictions. They worked together to find legal representation, gather stories, and talk to the press. What do you think is the significance of the activists combining their efforts? What do you think may be the power of organizing a group of people around a common social cause, versus standing alone? What kind of support does working in a group provide? Share an experience where working as a group gave you more support.

Through her relentless activism, María Mercedes Bueno works to bring attention to the stealing of infants. The film also shows her gathering stories from other women who suffered the same fate. Have you ever felt determined to stand by a belief or experience? Have you ever had to gather the support of others, or motivate others to speak out? What was that experience like?

Closing Questions

At the end of your discussion, to help people synthesize what they’ve experienced and move the focus from dialogue to action steps, you may want to choose one of these questions:

• What did you learn from this film that you wish everyone knew? What would change if everyone knew it?
• If you could require one person (or one group) to view this film, who would it be? What do you hope their main takeaway would be?
• The story of The Silence of Others is important because ___________.
• Complete this sentence: I am inspired by this film (or discussion) to __________.

Additional media literacy questions are available at:https://www.amdoc.org/engage/resources/media-literacy-questions-analyzing-pov-films/using-framework/

If the group is having trouble generating their own ideas for next steps, these suggestions can help get things started:

• Learn more about the transitional justice process.
• Educate yourself about the details of the Spanish civil war, Franco’s dictatorship and Spain’s transition from dictatorship to democracy through books, films, and other media. Explore POV’s bibliography, available here.
• Learn more about the challenges survivors of state violence face, including mental health, PTSD and other challenges.
• Continue to research and learn about the fight for criminal justice against the Franco regime in Spain as it is changing every year.
• Learn more about the history of the place in which you live, including difficult histories or buried histories. Consult with local libraries, librarians, historians or teachers to guide you in finding information that may not be easy to gather.
• Talk with Spanish friends, family, peers or acquaintances to learn more about their experiences with The Pact of Forgetting and/or learning about Franco.
• Travel to Spain to learn more about Spanish culture and history.
• Stand up against persecution in your own community when you encounter it. Report acts of violence against ethnic and/or minority groups.
• Organize storytelling circles to instill a culture of sharing experiences and truth.
• Participate in a workshop on active listening to develop skills to be able to listen deeply without judgement to other peoples’ stories.
• Talk to a mental health professional about the conditions of your own mental health, including anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The Pact of Forgetting is an unwritten agreement negotiated by Spain’s leading political parties that discouraged any discourse around Franco and the civil war.

The Spanish 1977 Amnesty Law was enacted in 1977, two years after Francisco Franco's death. The law freed political prisoners and permitted those exiled abroad to return to Spain, yet also guaranteed impunity for those who participated in crimes during the Civil War and in Francoist Spain.

CeAQUA was created in 2012 to help generate support for the Argentina Lawsuit that is investigating the crimes of the Franco dictatorship. Integrated by several organizations and social movements it provides assistance to those who have or want to join the Querella Argentina, as well as local complaints through its different territorial platforms.

The Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (La Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica) collects oral and written testimonies about the infractions of Francisco Franco and excavates to identify bodies from the regime’s mass graves.

The United Nations explains that in 2018, the Spanish Government proposed building a Truth Commission and expressed commitment to drawing up plans to search for those who disappeared during the civil war and Franco's dictatorship.

The International Center for Transitional Justice works with victims, civil society groups, national, and international organizations in countries that have endured massive human rights abuses to ensure redress for victims and to help prevent atrocities from occurring again.

Human Rights Watch investigates and reports on abuses happening in all corners of the world. We are roughly 450 people of 70-plus nationalities who are country experts, lawyers, journalists, and others who work to protect the most at risk, from vulnerable minorities and civilians in wartime, to refugees and children in need.

The Center for Constitutional Rights works with communities under threat to fight for justice and liberation through litigation, advocacy, and strategic communications. Since 1966, we have taken on oppressive systems of power, including structural racism, gender oppression, economic inequity, and governmental overreach.

The International Coalition of Sites of Conscience is the only worldwide network of Sites of Conscience. With over 275 members in 65 countries, we build the capacity of these vital institutions through grants, networking, training, transitional justice mechanisms and advocacy.

European Center for Constitutional Human Rights in Berlin works with international human rights lawyers, in order to protect and enforce the rights guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as other declarations of human rights and national constitutions, through legal means.

FIDH in Paris acts at national, regional and international levels in support of its member and partner organizations to address human rights abuses and consolidate democratic processes. Its work is directed at States and those in power, such as armed opposition groups and multinational corporations. Its primary beneficiaries are national human rights organizations who are members of FIDH, and through them, the victims of human rights violations.

TRIAL International in Geneva fights for justice when international crimes are committed. Such crimes are genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, enforced disappearance, sexual violence and extrajudicial execution.

Amnesty International – Spain through thoughtful research and campaigning, Amnesty International Spain helps fight abuses of human rights in Spain. Their goals are to bring torturers to justice, change oppressive laws, and free people jailed just for voicing their opinion.

LA COMUNA is an association of former political prisoners of the Franco regime constituted in the spring of 2011 to give direct testimony of the struggles and repression that characterized the last five years of the long Franco dictatorship, the period that has been called late-Francoism, as a contribution to the fight against impunity of that regime.

Writer

Mallory Rukhsana Nezam, Justice + Joy

Background Writing

Ione Barrows

Guide Producers, POV

Alice Quinlan

Community Engagement and Education Consultant, POV Engage

Asad Muhammad

Vice President, Impact and Engagement Strategy, POV

Rachel Friedland

Community Partnerships Assistant, POV

Jana Smith

Assistant, POV Engage

Thanks to those who reviewed this guide:

Almudena Carracedo and Robert Bahar

Directors and Producers, The Silence of Others

Dr. Sebastiaan Farber

Professor of Hispanic Studies, Oberlin College

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