Jaume Font Marí-Martí (Terrassa, 1918-2010) was so discreet that he practically never spoke about his clandestine struggle or how he infiltrated the Francoist military judicial machinery to alter records and save lives. "I had to pull many strings. He only spoke to me about it once. We were walking through Cerdanya with some friends, we were teenagers. Without looking directly at anyone, almost contemplating the landscape, my father explained that after the Civil War he had worked at the War Auditor's Office and that he had risked a lot by altering documents to reduce sentences or avoid death penalties. It was an unexpected and brief revelation. No one asked any questions. The conversation stopped there and he never spoke of it again," says his daughter, Núria Font.

"Fifty years later, we're taking Franco to Modelo prison; we're doing poetic justice," says historian Andreu Mayayo, who curates the project with fellow historian José Manuel Rua and the UB's Center for International Historical Studies. And after Franco, what? (1965-1975)The exhibition, which can be visited in the former prison in the Eixample district, is a journey through the final years of the dictatorship. It speaks of Franco's agony, but also of what might have happened and the different scenarios envisioned by the anti-Franco movement. At the end, there is a ballot box where visitors can vote among several alternatives: from a Franco regime without Franco to the political and social democracy of the communists, including Catalan third ways, among many other possibilities. When the exhibition closes on July 19, the results will be published.

A sinister black Cadillac Fleetwood Seventy-Five, escorted by motorcycle police, triumphantly travels along the Barcelona-Girona highway while a crowd of children in shorts enthusiastically wave small Spanish flags. The photograph, taken during the official visit of dictator Francisco Franco to Girona on May 17, 1960, has become the cover of the book. Francoism in GironaThe book, which the Girona City Council has deliberately delayed in publishing as the official book of the Sant Narcís Fairs to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the dictator's death, is authored by seven historians from Girona and includes a foreword by the mayor, Lluc Salellas. It avoids simplistic views, and some of its articles, particularly the one by Josep Clara, Girona's most renowned historian of the Franco regime, meticulously detail, with exceptional archival insights, the tenacious and persistent repression that was relentless against the vanquished.

Catalan society has long struggled, through memorial and human rights organizations, for a public policy on memory that reflects the suffering experienced, the truth that is still denied, and the democratic future we seek to build. This struggle has been constant, cross-cutting, and persistent. And, among all the demands, one stands out with symbolic force: the redefinition of the building at 43 Via Laietana.

Joan Comorera, born in Cervera in 1894, died ill in the Burgos prison on May 6, 1958. He had been the right-hand man of President Lluís Companys, and one of the founders of the PSUC and its first secretary until he was expelled from the party. Persecuted by the Francoists and the communists, he was finally imprisoned in June 1954. Until now it was not very clear who betrayed him. The journalist Antoni Batista (Barcelona, ​​​​1952), ombudsman of the ARA, has had access to the manuscripts of the commissioner who arrested him: Antonio Juan Creix. Everything was in order and there was first-hand police material, including the exhaustive statement in which Comorera reviews his life. Batista, as he has done in other books, carries out an exhaustive investigation to give clues about what Comorera's last years were like and his relationship with Creix. The truth of the Comorera case. A story of espionage, harassment and betrayal (Now Books).

Joan Comorera, born in Cervera in 1894, died ill in the Burgos prison on May 6, 1958. He had been the right-hand man of President Lluís Companys, and one of the founders of the PSUC and its first secretary until he was expelled from the party. Persecuted by the Francoists and the communists, he was finally imprisoned in June 1954. Until now it was not very clear who betrayed him. The journalist Antoni Batista (Barcelona, ​​​​1952), ombudsman of the ARA, has had access to the manuscripts of the commissioner who arrested him: Antonio Juan Creix. Everything was in order and there was first-hand police material, including the exhaustive statement in which Comorera reviews his life. Batista, as he has done in other books, carries out an exhaustive investigation to give clues about what Comorera's last years were like and his relationship with Creix. The truth of the Comorera case. A story of espionage, harassment and betrayal (Now Books).

It has been a long and tortuous road, a tug of war between the political parties in which the problems Spain has when facing its most recent past have surfaced. In the end, however, the new Spanish law on democratic memory will be enacted today. It is a great step forward with regards to the 2007 law, but some entities, which have been fighting for years for the victims to receive dignified treatment or for Franco's crimes to be brought to trial, consider that there is still a lot of work to be done.