Àngel González: "We opened a closet and found the proof that they had killed my grandmother in 1936"

Barcelona“I am very proud of my grandmother, of who she was and what she did, even though she must have suffered a lot, and at the same time I am angry about all the silence, because she was never spoken of in my family. I understand they must have done it to protect us and out of fear, but now I want to do everything possible so that people know who Carmen was,” says Àngel González, who contacted ARA after reading the report on Federico García Lorca published in the August 16th edition.

His grandmother is one of the 40 women exhumed in the Víznar ravine (Granada). Carmen Rodríguez Parra (1884-1936), known as “Carmela la de los Pajaritos”, was an anarchist from Granada murdered in the same summer as Lorca, and buried in the same ravine where the poet's remains have been sought for years. It was when her parents died, in 2010, that he learned his grandmother had been murdered. Àngel's mother was Nieves López, one of Carmen's two daughters. "When we were emptying her flat on Provença street [in Barcelona] to sell it, we opened a wardrobe and found proof that she had been killed in 1936: there were two books that spoke of Lorca and my grandmother, Carmela, along with photographs and a very special purse. Inside the purse there were some needles and a handwritten note from my mother that said: 'My mother's purse that she carried when she was killed'," explains González.

Before being murdered, his grandmother was held in the San Gregorio prison in Granada, and one of the last relatives who had stayed in Granada collected the purse and then gave it to Nieves. “It was a huge shock to realize that my grandmother had been killed in 1936 and that no one at home had ever spoken of it,” laments González. From that moment on, he began to investigate. “I found articles by the researcher Sílvia González and the historian Fran Andújar, who had a lot of information about my grandmother's trajectory as a leader of the CNT, but they didn't know any family members. When I contacted them in 2019, everything took on another dimension,” says González.

They don't know when Nieves came to Catalonia, but it was shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War and the murder of her grandmother. “They must have foreseen that things would go badly,” says Àngel. In fact, the whole family ended up living in Catalonia. With Nieves came José Rodríguez Parra, a cousin who ended up with two indictments for Freemasonry. “He joined Freemasonry in 1937, was convicted and served two years in prison. Later, in 1944, he had a second trial for having joined a Masonic lodge,” explains historian Sílvia González. Carmen, Nieves' sister, was evacuated and for a few days was missing because she was one of the thousands of people who fled Malaga, terrified by the radio broadcasts in which Queipo de Llano made his intentions clear: to massacre and rape. The coastal road filled with families trying to reach the Republican zone while being pursued by tanks, bombarded from the sea, and machine-gunned from the air.

Women in the trenches

Carmen's husband and Àngel's grandfather, Antonio López, was in hiding for a time and went to Catalonia between 1942 and 1944. “I met him and had helped him in the garden, but I never thought to ask him questions,” says Àngel. "When we started investigating Víznar, many women appeared in the mass grave. As a documentalist, I was very surprised; I have worked in several mass graves and we did not expect there to be so many. In one grave, twelve of them were buried together, the seamstresses. In total, forty have been found. With our team, we go through the villages and collect testimonies, because when we started we had no biographical data for any of them," explains Sílvia González.

Carmen was an empowered woman ahead of her time: "She was one of the first female interventors of the Popular Front in Granada, a very exceptional case because there were very few, and her tavern was a very special place," explains Sílvia González. She married at 16 to a man of 30. When she was widowed, she bought the tavern and got together with Antonio, Àngel's grandfather. "The tavern was hers, not her husband's. She was a woman far ahead of her time who helped and supported many anarchists. Carmen's tavern was the nerve center of the CNT, the place where many men and women found refuge. The anarchists spoke of Madre Carmela," details the researcher.

"Frederica Montseny was a reference for anarchism, but Carmen was the comfort; her support and companionship were essential," highlights Sílvia González, who regrets that sometimes there is a lack of information about many of these women who were murdered. "They resisted more and were the most mistreated. From prison, we have little information: most were shaved and some testimonies speak of violence, but the data is scarce. Women in prison had no contact with their families; relatives brought them food and clothes, but they could not speak to them. We do not know for sure if they suffered rape, but when you see the mass grave and how they were buried, the violence is evident," explains Sílvia González.

The recovery of the remains

"In 2022, my brother and I went to the Víznar ravine, where a multidisciplinary team led by Francisco Carrión was exhuming remains from mass graves. We left DNA samples there and, finally, in 2024 the Granada laboratory confirmed the match: the exhumed remains belonged to my grandmother, Carmen Rodríguez Parra," details Àngel. On December 19th of last year, the official handover of the remains to the Víznar Town Hall took place in a very emotional ceremony where CNT colleagues paid tribute to her. Now, her remains are under the team's custody awaiting the construction of a mausoleum in Víznar. "There is a photograph where I am seen completely devastated, crying. I would never have imagined that upon receiving the remains of my grandmother – whom I had never met – and with the tribute they paid her, I would be so moved. Moreover, as she had been a leader of the CNT, the CNT members brought a flag and sang A las barricadas. It was... Good heavens, I'm getting emotional now. It was impressive," recalls Àngel. "I was as moved as when I had my first daughter," he adds.