Cómo denunciar cuando todos callan: los niños robados por el franquismo

Abstract

Francisco Franco's long dictatorship far from easing the pain caused by the Spanish Civil War, only increased the ache of the wounds. The country, which had faced a fratricidal conflict between 1936 and 1939, would continue to endure violence and intolerance that would become the quintessence of the winning regime. Communists were demonized and, as such, they would be treated later by the Francoist authorities. Laws enacted during the Second Republic were abolished. In this way, divorces were annulled and the rights granted to women, abolished. Both sexes inmates filled the prisons: overcrowding, diseases and a cruel treatment for the reds became a priority for the Generalísimo and his followers. Violence was crystallized as another component of prison life. On the other hand, women were humiliated, subjected to excessive punishments and executed after trials in which their rights were not respected, and they suffered the worst of the torments: the expropriation of their children. The children were separated from their parents to “demarxitize them”, this is why many were removed from their biological families and given to regime related families, and many times, after exchanging money. With the death of Franco, in 1975, many Spaniards sheltered the idea of carrying out trials that would repair wounds. However, the laws once again ignored ignominy. Oblivion and silence seemed to win the battle. More than 30,000 children were "abducted." But the culprits were never judged or punished. With this work, we aim to analyze the representation of those children, whose family life was taken from them, based on the documentaries Los niños perdidos del franquismo (2002), by Montserrat Armengou and Ricard Belis and El silencio de otros (2018), by Almudena Carracedo and Robert Behar. Parting from them, the hidden forms of violence in Francoism methods and the replication of violence due to the Silence policy and prohibition established by the laws sanctioned in democracy, would be exposed.Dictatorship – audiovisual representation – children - memory