278 bottles of sherry in the trenches and shacks of misery: the archaeology that uncovers the inequality of war

Barcelona"Ruins tell what people keep silent about," affirms archaeologist Alfredo González Ruibal (Madrid, 1976), who has spent two decades excavating the remnants of the Civil War and Francoism. He has explored mass graves, trenches, concentration camps, and shacks, and has eaten a pizza in the kitchen of the Pazo de Meirás, the summer residence of the Franco family until very recently. Pazo de Meirás, the summer residence of the Franco family until very recently. He has followed the trails of hunger and abundance. In País en ruinas (Crítica), he demonstrates that Spain is a great archaeological site of the repression of the war and the dictatorship, and that, indeed, many "treasures" that rebel against silence are hidden there.

For example, the University City of Madrid was a battlefield between November 15, 1936, and March 28, 1939. The debris from the trenches explains how soldiers lived, how they died, and how they killed, but also who got rich. At the Asylum of Santa Cristina, within the grounds of the University City, was the base of the Francoist side. "The most abundant are bottles of alcoholic beverages," assures González Ruibal. A subterranean bar was even established there, known as the Bar de la Bandera, which was very well-stocked. The team of archaeologists collected 278 bottles of sherry. There were even some of Fino Legionario. Particularly abundant were bottles from some Andalusian wineries that significantly expanded their business after the war. There was a huge contrast between the trenches of the victors and the vanquished. In the Francoist trenches of the University City, 2,627 bones of diverse fauna were recovered, demonstrating that the rebels were well-fed. In contrast, bones were practically non-existent in the Republican trenches.

There is one thing that obsesses González Ruibal quite a bit: remembering the daily dignity that archaeology helps to highlight. "There are many things that documents and archives do not even consider worthy of recording. Objects collect daily life and explain how many people fought to maintain dignity despite precarious conditions," says the archaeologist, who has also excavated the shacks that existed in the Madrid neighborhood of Entrevías. "The amount of things we have found related to hygiene, both personal and domestic, is extraordinary, and this tells us about the extraordinary effort of those who lived there to present themselves to society as dignified, hardworking people, because living there could mean being seen as a marginal person of dubious morals," he states. The same happens in concentration camps, where plates and eating utensils made from the remains of cans have been found. "There are acts that we do automatically that define us as human beings, such as table manners; we do not eat like animals, and even less so when we are in plain sight of other people. We have material evidence of this effort," he explains.

A pizza at the Pazo de Meirás

Francoist violence did not leave many written documents. There is no documentary trace of many murders and tortures. "Archaeology has made it possible to document many executions carried out by the Civil Guard and paramilitaries, or the war of extermination against the maquis, which left behind the bones of minors, women, and innocent civilians," details González Ruibal, who also traces the trail of hunger and the disappearance of rural communities. However, many spaces remain pending. He would like to excavate some repressive institutions, such as those of Auxilio Social and various penitentiary centers. "Orphanages represent one of the most terrible facets of the regime. They hid a totalitarian structure and were the destiny of hundreds of thousands of children. The real objective was indoctrination in terrible conditions. There were terrible psychological and physical punishments. It would be a wonderful project to be able to rescue their voices," assures the archaeologist, who also prospected Pazo de Meirás just after the dictator's family handed over the keys to the Spanish government.

"We lived there for three days; I especially remember the first day, when we had lunch in Franco's kitchen. We ate a pizza there, which is a form of desecration of a place that Francoism considered a sacred space. It is good to desecrate these spaces, not only to demonstrate the violence that took place there, but also to ridicule them. The executioner must be shown not only as a criminal, but as a ridiculous figure," argues the author. At Pazo de Meriás, he discovered several things. "Franco's omnipresence at the Pazo is overwhelming. One might think that in the most private area his presence would diminish, but it is everywhere. This is a clear indicator of his narcissism and how he had internalized his own narrative of power. We were able to verify how it had become a sanctuary for the far-right where propaganda from Falange, Fuerza Nueva, and other small groups appeared, who, already in democracy, sent all kinds of objects (keychains, postcards, souvenirs) to Carmen Polo as a representative of the dictatorship," he adds. At Pazo de Meirás, the archaeologist was also able to further debunk the idea that Franco had any intellectual curiosity or wisdom. "He had practically no books, and those he had were of very low literary quality," he states.

Faced with AI or all the manipulation circulating on the networks, the archaeologist argues that a skull perforated by a bullet is an "irrefutable" piece of evidence and that objects have the capacity to create empathy. "We often think about the power of objects like the shoes from Auschwitz. We imagine parents and children wearing these shoes; it's an exercise that fosters a brutal identification and empathy," he details. For many families of murder victims, keeping personal objects like a wallet or a tie means keeping alive a part of the presence of their loved ones. "These objects convey the feeling that they still have a story to tell," the archaeologist summarizes.