This week, RTVE has released a short documentary film entitled At ground level about the so-called early exhumations of Franco-era graves. The broadcast was accompanied by a special moderated by Xabier Fortes. Both programs can be found on the RTVE Play platform.
The early exhumations took place in 1977 in towns across Navarre. Neighbors organized to exhume relatives and acquaintances who had been persecuted by the Franco regime. The law didn't allow it, but neither did it prohibit it, although it involved a certain clandestinity. The fear was still evident, but logic and the human instinct to recover the remains of loved ones were stronger. Everything was done with a pick and shovel, after community work during which an attempt was made to gather data that would allow the bodies to be identified, guided by the stories that had remained in the intimate memories of those who survived but also in the collective memory of those territories most affected. It must be kept in mind that in Navarre there was no war front and the 3,400 dead that are counted were shot.
"It seemed to everyone that they were their father, their grandfather... but they were all the same. They had all been killed. [...] And with such tenderness they left them in that box! You can't imagine how carefully! Little by little, as if they could hurt them," says one of the women interviewed. Meanwhile, we watch the films that were shot of the entire exhumation process. Images that show the determination of the people, the emotion of recovering the skeletons, of touching the bones, the pilgrimage of coffins to the village's common grave... These are deeply striking and moving images because they respond to a spontaneous and legitimate need that doesn't wait for official resolutions or permits. Back then, it didn't seem like there was that caution either.
The camera observes and interviews the descendants of these victims in the context in which their relatives were murdered or in the places where they coordinated to carry out these exhumations. The stories of humiliation and stigmatization are recovered, and the materials they have preserved are collected: farewell letters, cassette tapes on which some people had recorded their grandparents' voices to remember the days of terror and to preserve as much information as possible, photo albums, documents... All of this constitutes the legacy of the trace. There is only one but: a certain reiteration in emphasizing that none of this was motivated by partisanship or hatred, in a desire to remove any political charge from events in which political consideration is endemic and unavoidable. At ground level It's nothing new, nor different, nor better than what we've seen before in other TV3 documentaries about historical memory. But it contributes to vindicating one of the major unresolved issues in Spain. In fact, it would be nice if the broadcast were to become a series that follows the trail of mass graves across the entire map and the pain that remains.
