Isabel `{`host`}`: Several men and women have been digging the soil for days. First with shovels, and now with smaller tools: a trowel, a chisel. Around them, about twenty people watch, or chat, or walk around. These women and men are exhuming the bodies of several people who were thrown into this mass grave in 1936, right at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. Many of these words \u2013 exhumation, disappeared person, historical memory \u2013 are now very common in our daily lives, and some are even bored with hearing them and right now will be thinking \u2013 maybe you\u2019re thinking \u2013 \u201cyet one more story about the Spanish Civil War.\u201d But this isn\u2019t a story about the Civil War. Or not only. It\u2019s a story from 20 years ago, when almost nobody in our country used those words \u2013 exhumation, disappeared person, historical memory \u2013 to refer to our dead. Those words sounded like from other countries, they felt distant from us. In fact, the protagonist of today\u2019s story didn\u2019t use them, either. Even though he was the first person in our country who managed to do a public exhumation, using scientific methods, and who changed the way we talk about our past.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m with Emilio Silva\u2026<\/p>\n
Emilio Silva, President of the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory\u2026<\/p>\n
Emilio, good afternoon.<\/p>\n
Emilio, very good afternoon.<\/p>\n
Good afternoon Emilio<\/p>\n
Emilio, thank you very much for your time.<\/p>\n
Thank you.<\/p>\n
Isabel: You must have heard his voice a thousand times. But this isn\u2019t the story of the public man. It\u2019s the story of a 35-year-old man who decides to change his life and then, by chance, finds the place where all his silences come from. And who manages to conquer them.<\/p>\n
Isabel: What would you like this story to say about you?<\/p>\n
Emilio: Well, I\u2019d like it to talk about my \u201cwe don\u2019t talk about that,\u201d right? Which is basically why I\u2019m here. Because I have\u2026 Let\u2019s say, defeated a silence, right? It\u2019s a victory. To talk about a victory. That\u2019s it.<\/p>\n
Isabel: I\u2019m Isabel Cadenas Ca\u00f1\u00f3n. Welcome to De eso no se habla.<\/p>\n
`{`Theme`}`<\/p>\n
`{`Intercom buzzing`}`<\/p>\n
Emilio: Hello?<\/p>\n
Isabel: Silvi!<\/p>\n
Emilio: You\u2019re here already?<\/p>\n
Isabel: Yes.<\/p>\n
Isabel: I\u2019ve known Emilio for seven years, but it feels like more.<\/p>\n
Emilio: Oh, without a PCR or anything done\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: Emilio is one of my best friends. I know when I get to his house he\u2019ll have already been up for several hours, he\u2019ll have finished listening to the radio and will be writing on the computer.<\/p>\n
Isabel: What are you doing?<\/p>\n
Emilio: Writing.<\/p>\n
Isabel: What are you writing?<\/p>\n
Emilio: A paragraph for something.<\/p>\n
Isabel: For a novel?<\/p>\n
Emilio: Well, maybe, yes.<\/p>\n
Isabel: And I also know that, at this time, almost noon, he will already be having a coca cola. His mornings are like this: first chocolate milk, then a coffee, and after that the glass of coca cola.<\/p>\n
Emilio: In that order, yes. First, I have something sweet, then a little caffeine, and then a little more caffeine.<\/p>\n
Isabel: I don\u2019t know if you could say that Emilio is a man of habit, but he certainly has very established habits. Every day he wakes up to the radio, every day he reads the BOE (Official State Gazette), every day he spends some time alone. And he always dresses the same way: a pair of jeans, a polo shirt and a crew neck sweater in case it gets cold. I\u2019ve seen them light blue, dark blue and black. Apparently before they were dress shirts instead of polos, but that\u2019s the only innovation Emilio has made in his wardrobe:<\/p>\n
Emilio: Yes, yes\u2026 Go ahead and laugh. I mean, when my friends in the eighties, here in Madrid, bought some long raincoats or some were semi-mod or\u2026 Me, just normal. I mean, I don\u2019t have to define myself with clothes. I mean, if something defines me, it\u2019s normal.<\/p>\n
Isabel: His friends often laugh about this, that he\u2019s always dressed the same. But we also know that these are traces left over from a childhood and adolescence and even from an adulthood marked by being told not to stand out, to blend in, to not draw attention to himself.<\/p>\n
Emilio: I let my hair grow a little long when I was 17. That\u2019s the most radical thing I\u2019ve ever done. And from then on, normality. And I do understand it\u2019s a strategy learned in the family. Nobody should look at me because I\u2019m wearing something strange, because\u2026 Don\u2019t let them look at me, just don\u2019t look at me.<\/p>\n
Isabel: Emilio was born in 1965 in Elizondo, Navarra, and it was almost by chance: his father had to stop studying when he was a child\u2026<\/p>\n
Emilio: My father talked about how he had worked since he was a child like, well, as if at that time that was the usual thing, right?<\/p>\n
Isabel: But later, when he grew up, he managed to study and was given a job on a U.S. military base guarding a radar service. That\u2019s why the family had to move a lot to different bases until they ended up in Pamplona, where Emilio spent most of his childhood. He says that what marked him most as a child was the harshness of the school system. Emilio always says he was a misfit to that system: he changed schools many times, and he didn\u2019t have a very good time in any of them. He got very bad grades and was often punished for no reason. Like that time, when he was 10, when a teacher tied his left hand so he would stop being left-handed. This punishment was very common then.<\/p>\n
Emilio: I\u2019m talking about \u201875. I was in the fifth grade and well, all that discourse, right? About the left hand as the devil\u2019s hand, as something\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: But it had aftereffects on Emilio.<\/p>\n
Emilio: Well, I started to stutter.<\/p>\n
Isabel: Emilio\u2019s distress was expressed by his voice, or rather, by his lack of voice. His parents changed his school again.<\/p>\n
Emilio: And then they took me to one of the Opus schools.<\/p>\n
Isabel: But they were not really a religious family.<\/p>\n
Emilio: I\u2019ve never seen my parents at mass.<\/p>\n
Isabel: Thats\u2019 why Emilio thinks they sent him and his sisters there as a kind of camouflage.<\/p>\n
Emilio: So I understand that it was a kind of normalization, right? Kind of \u201cI\u2019m not going to\u2026 I\u2019m not going to pass on these conflicting things that are part of me, my children as they should be,\u201d right?<\/p>\n
Isabel: It was in those years, in Pamplona, when, for the first time, Emilio learned that it was better not to talk about those conflictive things.<\/p>\n
Emilio: I do remember, when I was 13 years old, talking about my grandfather with someone and my father stopped me. It was my father\u2019s first \u201cyou can\u2019t talk about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Isabel: Emilio knew very little about his paternal grandfather. He knew above all two things: some mountains and an attic. And those two things appeared every summer when the family traveled to Pereje, a small town in the Bierzo region with stone houses and slate roofs where his father was born. The attic was in his grandmother\u2019s house:<\/p>\n
Emilio: I know she didn\u2019t like us going to the attic. There were some objects from my grandfather\u2019s store. There was a scale, there were weights\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: The mountains were called Montearenas.<\/p>\n
Emilio: The first thing I remember is passing near them in the car on the way there and on the way back. And my father saying that maybe my grandfather\u2019s body was around there.<\/p>\n
Isabel: During those summers he spent in El Bierzo, little Emilio also saw how he wasn\u2019t the only one who was forbidden to talk about certain things.<\/p>\n
Emilio: When my grandmother listened to her children, to my father and his siblings, talking about the past and remembering things from when they were little and she sensed that at some point they could talk about their father, she would hit the table. There would be a silence in the kitchen and it would take a few seconds to change the conversation, you know? Because there was a territory there you couldn\u2019t talk about.<\/p>\n
Isabel: So, when he received the order from his father to be quiet, it was not difficult for him to accept it: after all, it was like a family tradition.<\/p>\n
Emilio: Shame was born in me there, for a long time. Thinking we were guilty of something, well\u2026 When you\u2019re that age you don\u2019t know the extent of what they\u2019re telling you or\u2026 And I didn\u2019t know many things\u2026 I knew there was a grandfather who died in the war, that\u2019s all.<\/p>\n
Isabel: With that shame, little Emilio started growing up, the family continued to move and that stutter from school took on other forms. In Aranjuez, where he started high school, Emilio began to feel panic about speaking in public.<\/p>\n
Emilio: If a teacher talked about having to present an assignment in class, I would most likely skip class that day. I mean, it upset me to think I had to stand in front of my class and talk about something. What did I do? Well, writing was a refuge. I would go to parks in Aranjuez to write tacky verses there, bucolic, rhyming, in a small notebook.<\/p>\n
Isabel: That\u2019s why, when he had to choose what to study at the university, Emilio knew: he wanted to be a journalist so he could make a living from writing. But he had repeated three courses and had such bad grades that he couldn\u2019t get into journalism, and he decided to study sociology. And so, in September 1986, Emilio arrived at one of the most politicized faculties at the Complutense University.<\/p>\n
Emilio: Assemblies lasting hours, all day long. I was interested, but I never opened my mouth in public, I think, during my entire degree.<\/p>\n
Isabel: And that fear was not only about speaking, of course: speaking meant defining oneself, saying who you were in front of strangers. It meant, as they said then, to stand out.<\/p>\n
Emilio: I was very interested in everything, but always, mmmm. Undefined.<\/p>\n
Isabel: All this silence and insecurity and lack of definition is a bit surprising for anyone who knows the public Emilio. Emilio has those lowered eyes when he speaks that give away his shyness, but he\u2019s not someone who\u2019s quiet, nor someone with few friends. I\u2019d say he\u2019s the opposite: I don\u2019t know anyone who talks to more people during the day. In fact, in one of the interviews I do with him for this episode, we take a break and when he turns on his cell phone the notifications come in non-stop.<\/p>\n
Isabel: Just one thing, Emilio. How long have we been here? An hour and a half, right? I think so. How many messages do you have?<\/p>\n
Emilio: Well, let\u2019s see. 1, 2\u2026 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: He has messages from about 20 WhatsApp groups. And that\u2019s not counting the messages from Telegram, Twitter, emails. And this has always been the case. Those silences in front of his class or in front of an assembly didn\u2019t mean that Emilio was silent.<\/p>\n
Emilio: Not with my friends, but\u2026 Well, one can talk a lot and keep silent what must be kept silent, Well, for whatever reason, I had a huge conflict in my head.<\/p>\n
Isabel: Emilio sometimes names this conflict in a different way.<\/p>\n
Emilio: A kind of schizophrenia, right?<\/p>\n
Isabel: And he doesn\u2019t say this as an exaggeration. Mental health problems were also something he had experienced in his father\u2019s family. His uncle Manolo, his father\u2019s brother, was schizophrenic. And Emilio\u2019s grandmother, Modesta, began having anxiety attacks after her husband\u2019s death. You can\u2019t hear it very well, but Emilio recorded his father talking about it.<\/p>\n
Father: Huh?<\/p>\n
Emilio: Careful. What were those attacks like?<\/p>\n
Father: Those attacks were breakdowns, you understand?<\/p>\n
Emilio: Nervous?<\/p>\n
Father: Nervous, completely. She would even lose consciousness. She had several of those. They were a consequence of grandpa\u2019s death, you understand?<\/p>\n
Isabel: It happened on October 16, 1936. Emilio Silva Faba, Emilio\u2019s grandfather, was 44 years old. He and Modesta had six children between the ages of six months and nine years. From the beginning of the war, the Falangists charged him fines for belonging to a leftist party. He had to pay so many that he barely had any products left in his store, La Preferida. That day, he went with his son Ram\u00f3n to the town hall to pay another one of those fines, but they wouldn\u2019t let him leave: as soon as he arrived, they put him in jail and Ram\u00f3n had to return home alone. He was seven years old. When he told his mother, Modesta went to the town hall with another of her sons, Manolo, to try to see her husband. They let the boy in for only a few minutes and forced him to say goodbye. He was six years old and was the last one to see his father alive. The next day, Modesta sent another of her sons to the jail: that other son was Emilio\u2019s father. He was nine years old.<\/p>\n
Father: Almost at daybreak. She woke me up early and said \u201ctake this,\u201d she made me something, \u201cbring your father his lunch.\u201d<\/p>\n
Isabel: When he got to the town hall he asked for his father.<\/p>\n
Father: And I said, \u201cI\u2019m Emilio Silva\u2019s son, from La Preferida,\u201d which was the name of the store\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: But they told him he was no longer there.<\/p>\n
Father: \u201cWell, he\u2019s not here.\u201d \u201cAnd where is he?\u201d \u201cAh, I don\u2019t know that. They came looking for him in a car and took him out, they took him away.\u201d And I went back and told this to mom. Mom started crying, she said \u201cThey took him out for a \u2018walk\u2019, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Isabel: There was no body, no confirmation that they had killed him. Just an absence, and a stigma and a whisper in the village whenever they passed by, and a pretense that nothing had happened, and a life that was never going to be the same again: Emilio\u2019s father had to stop studying and start working to feed the rest of his siblings. And they all learned to never again mention their father outside the home.<\/p>\n
`{`Music`}`<\/p>\n
Isabel: But Emilio didn\u2019t know anything about all this when he finished his degree and started working at whatever he could. He does market research\u2026<\/p>\n
Emilio: On mattresses, on pellets.<\/p>\n
Isabel: He writes catalogs\u2026<\/p>\n
Emilio: Compasses, canteens, anti-snake kits\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: And little by little he begins to reach his dream of writing for a living. Emilio begins to sell articles to various magazines, and in the end gets a contract in one of them. And although it isn\u2019t exactly what he wants to write\u2026<\/p>\n
Emilio: Well, gossip, stories of\u2026 Of love, of mystery, whatever they told me.<\/p>\n
Isabel: After so much insecurity, he finally feels that he can call himself a \u201cjournalist.\u201d<\/p>\n
Emilio: \u201cI finally have a paycheck and I\u2019m not disowned by journalism!\u201d.<\/p>\n
Isabel: And not only that: right at that time Emilio has a daughter with his partner and suddenly his life seems, at last, to be on track.<\/p>\n
Emilio: I\u2019d been a father, I had a very good relationship, I was\u2026 Work-wise I had resources\u2026 I said, \u201cI\u2019m in the happiest moment of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Isabel: And then what he least expected happens.<\/p>\n
Emilio: I have to tell that, too?<\/p>\n
Isabel: Not if you don\u2019t want to.<\/p>\n
Emilio: I spent that summer in a village near Madrid, we rented a house. And one day I\u2019m in my bedroom, with one hand on the crib, my daughter is falling asleep holding onto my finger, suddenly my head is racing, I didn\u2019t know what was happening to me. I got up, I couldn\u2019t organize my thoughts. Suddenly I lost control, I could barely breathe. I called my sister, talked to my girlfriend, went down to the street\u2026 I was on the edge\u2026 And then, well, I realized I was having an anxiety attack.<\/p>\n
Isabel: Emilio had never had an anxiety attack, and he doesn\u2019t understand why, when he\u2019s in the best moment of his life. But that attack touched on two of his greatest fears.<\/p>\n
Emilio: One was of mental illness and the other one of having a life that had nothing to do with me. So that attack opens up a reflection for me. And what do I think? Well, I\u2019ve always wanted to live from writing, ever since I was a little boy. And I realize that I\u2019m in a place at work that has absolutely nothing to do with me. Nothing.<\/p>\n
Isabel: And that\u2019s when Emilio makes a decision.<\/p>\n
Emilio: I decide that I\u2019m going to quit my job and give myself a year\u2019s time to try and see if I can live from writing, to write that novel I want to write.<\/p>\n
Isabel: And it\u2019s true that this decision changed his life, but not because he managed to finish the novel.<\/p>\n
Emilio: I haven\u2019t finished the book. That\u2019s what I was writing a bit ago\u2026 21 years later. But I stopped being \u201cnormal,\u201d in quotes.<\/p>\n
Isabel: What happened was this. The novel was to be called \u201cMemory and Stone.\u201d It was about some militiamen who go into exile in Argentina and, after 40 years of exile, decide to return to Spain to blow up the Valley of the Fallen. Strangely enough, Emilio didn\u2019t connect the novel\u2019s story to his family history.<\/p>\n
Emilio: I think consciously, no. I connected it to my interest in that period of history.<\/p>\n
Isabel: But he did want it to be set in the Bierzo and so he began to travel there a lot, to his father\u2019s village, Pereje, to do interviews and learn real stories of militiamen from the area.<\/p>\n
Woman: Yes. There was one there called\u2026 I don\u2019t remember. Who lived down there. And there was\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: He was accompanied to the interviews by Arsenio, a friend of his father\u2019s who knew the area very well and who still lived there. One afternoon, they had arranged to meet one of the last militiamen still alive in the area. It was Sunday and Arsenio and Emilio were eating before going to meet him.<\/p>\n
Emilio: And while we were eating, this man we had arranged to meet in the afternoon called to say that he had a family problem and couldn\u2019t come.<\/p>\n
Isabel: So Emilio and Arsenio kept eating and then they had coffee and continued talking all afternoon: they went from commenting on the news to telling each other about their lives and then they started talking about the Civil War.<\/p>\n
Emilio: And at one point, the subject of my grandfather came up. And I don\u2019t know how, he said something about where he was buried. And I said, \u201cBut you know where it is?\u201d \u201cWell, I think it\u2019s the exit of a village\u2026\u201d I said, \u201cIs it very far?\u201d He says, \u201cNo, no, here, nine kilometers away.\u201d And I say, \u201cDo you mind if we go?\u201d<\/p>\n
Isabel: This summer I took the same trip with Emilio that he had taken with Arsenio 20 years earlier. We stop here, at the entrance to Priaranza del Bierzo, at a crossroads between a highway and a smaller road. It\u2019s a place where there\u2019s a bench and, next to it, two rosemary plants.<\/p>\n
Emilio: Well, and here there was a rosemary plant. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s the same one. There were two plants here.<\/p>\n
Isabel: And above all there\u2019s a lot of noise, which I tried to avoid at all costs, until I realized that the noise was part of this story: we were in front of a ditch, one of those ditches in the ground alongside the road where the Francoists shot the Republicans.<\/p>\n
Emilio: Yes, of course, this\u2026 And now because there\u2019s a sidewalk here that orders the space a bit, but back then it was a bare ditch, that is, there was no sidewalk and it was the road and dirt.<\/p>\n
Isabel: Here is where Emilio arrived that afternoon in the year 2000, with Arsenio.<\/p>\n
Emilio: I got here a little bit anxious and just as I arrived at this crossroads here there was a man from here, from the village, who was taking a walk and so I said \u201cGood afternoon,\u201d \u201cGood afternoon,\u201d \u201cYou need to help me.\u201d And he said, \u201cFor what?\u201d and I said, \u201cWell, you see, I\u2019m looking for a grave of people who were killed in the war.\u201d And then right here, he was right in front of me and\u2026 He had his arms crossed behind his back, and he stretched out one arm and said, \u201cUnder that walnut tree.\u201d Here they call walnut trees (los nogales) in feminine, they call them las nogales, and he pointed to this area.<\/p>\n
Isabel: And he called his father from here.<\/p>\n
Emilio: My father was maybe a little serious, you know? Because this topic\u2026 It made him tense, so to speak, right? And it wasn\u2019t a long conversation, either. \u201cI\u2019m here and they tell me this.\u201d And I went to Madrid thinking, with my four-hour car ride, thinking about it, right? What could be done. What could be done? What could be done?<\/p>\n
`{`Music`}`<\/p>\n
Isabel: What do you do with a discovery of the place that has marked all your father\u2019s life and also yours? How do a son and father decide what to do with the body of a grandfather, of a father, who has been missing for 70 years? Maybe now, 20 years later, wanting to exhume it seems like a logical decision, or at least a possible decision, but at that time it wasn\u2019t. In Spain there had been exhumations before. Just after Franco died, women and men who thought they knew where the bodies of their relatives were went to dig them up, with their own picks and shovels, to bury them in cemeteries. There are no exact statistics because those exhumations were done privately, almost in secret, but it is estimated that there were hundreds throughout the peninsula. And it also appears that most of those exhumations were stopped with the Tejero coup d\u2019\u00e9tat on February 23, 1981. And they were buried in oblivion. In 2000, which is when Emilio found the grave, few people remembered that mass graves had been exhumed before. In fact, few people seemed to remember that mass graves existed. But it seemed obvious to Emilio and his family what they had to do: they knew that his grandmother Modesta\u2019s greatest wish was to have her husband buried next to her. Even though she never said so.<\/p>\n
Emilio: My grandmother died in the summer of \u201997. And that was, I think, a natural wish, right? From my father, from my uncle Ram\u00f3n\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: So Emilio and his family get down to business: they know that there may be up to 12 men in the grave besides his grandfather, and they start looking for the relatives of those people. At the same time, they go ask for help from the institutions.<\/p>\n
Emilio: I wrote to the Guardia Civil, we talked to the Court of Ponferrada, we went to the Government of Castile and Leon.<\/p>\n
Isabel: And Emilio writes a letter to the town hall asking them to help him with the exhumation.<\/p>\n
Emilio: Let\u2019s see. Shall I read it?<\/p>\n
Isabel: Although he doesn\u2019t say it exactly with that word.<\/p>\n
Emilio: \u201c\u2026 municipal authorities of Priaranza would be very useful in facilitating the necessary procedures to carry out the removal.\u201d Removal.<\/p>\n
Isabel: Emilio may not have used the word \u201cexhumation\u201d yet, but he understood that there was another word that perfectly described his grandfather\u2019s situation, and that was not used to speak of Franco\u2019s victims: it was the word \u201cdisappeared.\u201d At that time, that word was only used to speak of people who had disappeared in Argentina, or Chile, or Cambodia, in other words, far away.<\/p>\n
Emilio: Now it\u2019s no longer disputed, but at the beginning\u2026 Yeah, well, if you arrest someone, torture them, kill them and hide their body and their family doesn\u2019t know where it is\u2026 Then what do you call that here, right? It was the word \u201cwalkers\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: And this was not just symbolic: calling these people disappeared means giving them legal recognition, applying a category of international law that obligates the facts and perpetrators to be investigated and reparation for the victims. It implies making them real, and making them visible. It implies that the state has an obligation to make them appear. But this didn\u2019t happen, so Emilio and his family continued with the procedures and in a short time they had obtained all the permits and even had the date to do the exhumation.<\/p>\n
Emilio: We were on our way to the exhumation and didn\u2019t know how we were going to do it (laughs). That is, if we were going to hire a company, if\u2026 We didn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n
Isabel: They didn\u2019t know how, but I think deep down they knew they were going to do it. I know this because, at that moment, Emilio does something he has never done before: he writes and publishes a first-person article. And this is no small thing: Emilio never writes in the first person \u2013 this is something we fight about a lot.<\/p>\n
Emilio: No, I don\u2019t like it. I mean, I\u2019m going to say, it hurts\u2026 I avoid the \u201cI\u201d, I don\u2019t know, when I write something, I talk in the third person about things I\u2019ve done, because\u2026 It hurts me\u2026 I don\u2019t know, it\u2019s something\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: That article was entitled \u201cMy Grandfather was also a Disappeared Person.\u201d And it ends like this:<\/p>\n
Emilio: \u201cI knew there was a story to tell and that\u2019s what I\u2019ve done. But my story is a small part of that story. Nameless men. There are many people who survive the fear. There are many people who cannot bear to remember and that does not mean they have forgotten. That is why it is necessary to make noise, so that the memory wakes up again and abandons that dream that has kept it asleep for so many years.\u201d Published in La cr\u00f3nica de Le\u00f3n on October 8, 2000. And I put my phone number below in case a relative called me.<\/p>\n
Isabel: But the caller was not exactly a relative.<\/p>\n
Julio: I think I remember it was a Sunday afternoon. Well, I saw the article, which I think was entitled something like \u201cMy Grandfather was also a Disappeared Person\u201d or something like that, right?<\/p>\n
Emilio: I remember about four o\u2019clock in the afternoon. And I was about to take a nap.<\/p>\n
Julio: I spoke with Encina, my wife, who is an anthropologist. She\u2019s a specialist in human remains and I said \u201cListen, what do you say we call him and give him a hand in trying to get his grandfather back?\u201d<\/p>\n
Emilio: And the phone rings, a 987 (area code). And I answer and it\u2019s Julio Vidal.<\/p>\n
Julio: I said, \u201clook, I read your article, I\u2019m an archaeologist, my wife is an anthropologist, I know Priaranza very well\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n
Emilio: He told me, \u201cMy mother is from that town, I\u2019ve been going there since I was a child. I know the place where that grave is. We used to call it the Running Promenade when we were kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
Julio: I remember my sister holding my hand and telling me \u201crun, run, run, there are dead people there, there are people buried there, run, run.\u201d<\/p>\n
Emilio: \u201cAnd if we can help you in any way\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Julio: \u201cFor us, we\u2019re delighted if you want this help,\u201d so\u2026<\/p>\n
Emilio: And I say, \u201cWell, I\u2019ve won the lottery.\u201d<\/p>\n
Isabel: Julio specialized in archaeology about the origins of humanity. The most modern remains he had worked with were 7,000 years old, so he, like Emilio, was also learning. He only asked for one thing to do the exhumation.<\/p>\n
Julio: I said to Emilio, \u201cListen, what I do want to ask you about this matter is that the press not come, that is\u2026 that this not be in the newspaper, because if it\u2019s in the newspaper, they\u2019re going to\u2026, they\u2019ll drive us crazy.<\/p>\n
Isabel: Julio remembers that Emilio looked at him as if he didn\u2019t understand anything and explained that what they wanted to do was exactly the opposite.<\/p>\n
Julio: \u201cWhat I want is for this to come out and for it to be known that there are mass graves and that it\u2019s enough that there\u2019s dirt on top of them, and\u2026 of course, for us it\u2019s important that the information be spread.\u201d<\/p>\n
Isabel: Three weeks later the exhumation began. It was October 21, 2000.<\/p>\n
Emilio: Yes, yes, it started on a Friday. It was a cloudy day, but luckily it didn\u2019t rain. Julio Vidal left work in Le\u00f3n and went there in the afternoon, around half past four.<\/p>\n
Isabel: Julio and his wife, anthropologist Encina Prada, had called several friends -archaeologists, anthropologists and forensic scientists- and there, together, they established a method to do something that hadn\u2019t been done before in our country: Encina, Lourdes Herrasti and Paco Etxeberria installed a laboratory to analyze the remains they found. But first, Julio and the excavator operator, Vicente G\u00f3mez, began to test the soil: they opened holes about a meter and a half deep to try to locate the exact place where the bodies were. They were afraid they wouldn\u2019t appear: since 1936, the road had widened and the grave might have been left under the asphalt.<\/p>\n
Emilio: So that day it didn\u2019t show up. The next day they didn\u2019t show up either. It started to seem they weren\u2019t going to appear, that is\u2026 There was very little left to check. I was so doubtful that I went to see another person, to look for another witness. They told me about another person who had seen them and who might know.<\/p>\n
Isabel: Emilio didn\u2019t find the other witness, but when he came back, while he was in the car, someone called him.<\/p>\n
Emilio: He makes a gesture, I leave the car parked here. \u201cRun, run, run.\u201d Like something has appeared. The excavator operator had noticed that the bucket entered more easily in that exact place.<\/p>\n
Isabel: Emilio learned then that soil, after it\u2019s been removed, takes about 150 years to become as compact as it was. So the fact that the soil moved more easily was a sign that something was there.<\/p>\n
Emilio: And it was right there, you know? A boot with all the foot bones in it. Well, that was telling the whole story. There they were, right? We didn\u2019t know how many or how, but\u2026 Right in that little square they were there waiting. And then there was a mixture of emotion, of joy, of sorrow, of everything. Because at the end of the day you were looking for a grandfather in a ditch, you know?<\/p>\n
Isabel: The bodies of those men would take a few more days to appear. They appeared between the second and third weekend. There were 13 men in all. Thirteen men who other men from a rebel group had shot in the back of the head because they belonged to left-wing parties.<\/p>\n
Emilio: Well, it started here. And\u2026 And it was almost 12 meters, let\u2019s take twelve steps. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12. Well, it would be around here.<\/p>\n
Isabel: Javier, a friend of Emilio\u2019s, recorded what happened during those days. At one point in the video, when all the bodies are uncovered, Emilio\u2019s father, his brother Ram\u00f3n and his brother Manolo go down to the grave, to the level where the bodies are. The son who accompanied his father to the jail, the last son who saw him alive and the son who went to look for him the next day are now octogenarians who squat down, almost at the same time, and try to identify their father\u2019s body, after 76 years.<\/p>\n
Men: Well, one of these has to be him, but we don\u2019t really know which one at the moment. They pulled them and they left them the way they fell\u2026<\/p>\n
Well, I would almost\u2026 I would say in that area.<\/p>\n
You\u2019re leaning more towards that part?<\/p>\n
Yes.<\/p>\n
Anyway, since in addition to the shot in the center with the shotgun, he must have received the last shot, it\u2019s possible that the back of the head\u2026<\/p>\n
Emilio: For my uncles, my father and his brothers, it was very, very moving. In fact, my uncle Manolo took a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket. He unfolded it and it was a drawing that he had made in 1976, where he put something like \u201cpending problem.\u201d And he had hidden it for 24 years. And when he checked that the site of the grave corresponded to his plan, he took it out and said, \u201cWhere I said\u201d and I said, \u201cNo, you didn\u2019t tell anyone.\u201d So he had his little drawing, where he had drawn the mileage point, this road and a square that was practically identical to the one where the grave appeared.<\/p>\n
Isabel: Thirty years before Emilio, his uncle had gone to ask around and someone pointed out that place. But his uncle wasn\u2019t the only one: Emilio learned that his father had also been asking, back in the 1950s. And also his uncle Ram\u00f3n. The three brothers had been looking for their father on their own and had not told each other.<\/p>\n
Emilio: Well, these are stories of disintegration, aren\u2019t they? Of a conversation that should be normal in a family and how then each one was looking on his own, right? But without talking about it.<\/p>\n
Isabel: That wasn\u2019t the only conversation that was re-established in Priaranza. Neighbors from the town and curious people started coming around the exhumation, but also people who had relatives in other mass graves and had never talked about it. The video shows another of Emilio\u2019s aunts talking to some of those relatives who were looking for other bodies.<\/p>\n
Women: I stayed with my grandparents and\u2026 The sorrow was tremendous.<\/p>\n
They just don\u2019t want to believe it when they\u2019re told that they were killed just like that.<\/p>\n
Back then, we didn\u2019t talk about anything, we didn\u2019t know anything.<\/p>\n
When I was six months old, my brothers were all barefoot and naked because we had nothing, not even to eat\u2026<\/p>\n
It was always a question, all my life. Where could they be, where had they been thrown?<\/p>\n
My mother wanted to get them but I told her \u201cMom, where are you going to go for my father\u2019s remains if we don\u2019t even know where he is?\u201d<\/p>\n
Isabel: And at one point in that video, Emilio, in his jeans and dark blue shirt, stands in front of the camera to respond to an interview, and says this:<\/p>\n
Emilio: Holes are opening up in the silence, right? Which is what it\u2019s all about: may this hole that\u2019s been made here begin to pierce that silence and may sounds of what happened in those years begin to arrive\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: I asked Emilio what had happened to his trembling voice and his normality and his not standing out.<\/p>\n
Emilio: Well, I say maybe I\u2019d spent my whole life preparing for that interview. I mean, everything I\u2019d kept silent was waiting to come out, right? Boom. I mean, the hole is piercing me also, so to speak. That hole in the silence is also a hole that is drilling me, you know? And that\u2019s precisely what is making me talk. And suddenly, well, a conversation with the past started, right? And it became more complex and it spread to other places.<\/p>\n
Isabel: Two and a half years later a DNA test confirmed that the second body in the Priaranza del Bierzo mass grave was that of Emilio Silva Faba. For his grandson Emilio, that test was essential. He wanted to show that, after so many years, the identity of the disappeared people could be returned. And it was essential for another reason: Emilio wanted to bury his grandfather next to his grandmother Modesta and he wanted to be certain that it was him. This summer, after visiting the grave, Emilio took me to see his gravesite in the Pereje cemetery.<\/p>\n
`{`Door sound`}`<\/p>\n
Emilio: Let\u2019s see, where did I put the keys? Yes, yes, yes. This is it. She bought this pantheon here that says \u201cSilva Faba Property,\u201d which are the surnames of my grandfather, \u201cSant\u00edn Iglesias,\u201d which were hers. Well, it was like saying that she wanted Silva Faba to be buried here one day, which now he is, right? He\u2019s buried right there in the middle, with my grandmother.<\/p>\n
Isabel: And no\u2026 There\u2019s no tombstone?<\/p>\n
Emilio: No, he was buried like that. And\u2026 Sometimes I thought about putting something. But no, there\u2019s no tombstone.<\/p>\n
Isabel: It\u2019s interesting, isn\u2019t it? So much time trying to give your grandfather a name.<\/p>\n
Emilio: Yes.<\/p>\n
Isabel: And then suddenly\u2026<\/p>\n
Emilio: But it has my grandmother\u2019s, see? But look, it says \u201cwidow of Don Emilio Silva Faba.\u201d My grandmother died in \u201897 and she put that on the tombstone. His name is there.<\/p>\n
Isabel: Well, thank you very much, Silvi.<\/p>\n
Emilio: You\u2019re very welcome. Well, let\u2019s close.<\/p>\n
Isabel: Not bad, huh? Finishing your story here.<\/p>\n
Emilio: Well, nothing ends here.<\/p>\n
Isabel: I mean, if I wanted to finish your story somewhere\u2026<\/p>\n
Emilio: Well, it could be a place\u2026 Well, not here. I don\u2019t think\u2026 No, because precisely from that story a lot of stories have come up behind it, so\u2026 It\u2019s not an ending, it\u2019s a middle?<\/p>\n
Isabel: Emilio Silva Faba was the first disappeared person in our country to be publicly exhumed using scientific methods and identified with a DNA test. After his exhumation, more and more people contacted Emilio to ask for help in locating and digging up their own relatives. He knew there were many graves in our country but he didn\u2019t know that there were so many. In late 2000, he and three others founded the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory, of which he is still president. Since then, hundreds of organizations, associations and groups have emerged in Spain to try to recover historical memory and the bodies of more than 9,000 people thrown into mass graves during the civil war and dictatorship have been exhumed. The method used in all these exhumations remains the same as the one established in the Priaranza grave.<\/p>\n
Man: My grandfather was taken out of grave number 1.<\/p>\n
Woman: There was my grandfather, my great-grandfather and other relatives.<\/p>\n
Woman: We exhumed my mother, my brother\u2026<\/p>\n
Woman: And he always wanted to know where his father was.<\/p>\n
Woman: And I wasn\u2019t crying out of grief, I was crying out of joy that I had found her.<\/p>\n
Man: And it changed the history of the town.<\/p>\n
Woman: The change for our family was something that cannot be described.<\/p>\n
Man: In a way, the fear of speaking was lost.<\/p>\n
Isabel: By drilling into the earth, the movement that was born from that grave has also pierced the idyllic story of a Transition (to democracy) that left 114,226 bodies in ditches. And it has made us see the forced silence and the inherited silence that is still present in our country.<\/p>\n
Isabel: In 2010, on the tenth anniversary of the exhumation of the Priaranza 13, Emilio stood up, put himself in front of a microphone, in front of his relatives, in front of strangers, in front of TV cameras, and said this.<\/p>\n
Emilio: Hello, good morning. Until ten years ago, in this very place, I had never before in my life spoken in public. Here silence was born and here silence died.<\/p>\n
Isabel: He was wearing jeans, a jacket and a crew neck sweater. All black.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m Isabel Cadenas Ca\u00f1\u00f3n and we don\u2019t talk about that\u2026 Or else we do.<\/p>\n
`{`Sinton\u00eda`}`<\/p>\n
Isabel: The production, script and editing of this episode were done by me. Laura Casielles did the text and script editing and Vanessa Rousselot did the script editing. Our assistant editor and of almost everything is Paula Morais. The sound design is mine and Marcos Salso\u2019s and our recording studio is Isol\u00e9 Divisi\u00f3n Sonora. The communication is done by Laura Casielles. The illustration of this episode is by Carmen C\u00e1ceres and our tune is by Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto.<\/p>\n
Thanks to Sukina Ali Taleb, Naza Silva, Julia Silva, Marco Gonzalez Carrera and the relatives of disappeared people who have given us their testimonies for the end of this episode: Milagros Camu\u00f1as, Ant\u00f3n Castro, Pedro Canalejas Guzm\u00e1n, Camino Alonso D\u00edez, Luis Alonso Luengo and Asun Esteban Recio. Thanks also to the people who, by listening, have helped us to make this episode better. Your names are on our website.<\/p>\n
Friends, this is the last episode of this season. When we started this podcast, with an episode about noise and silence during confinement, we would have never imagined that in this strange 2020 we could feel so accompanied. Thanks to Rosana, Jadiya, Diana, Bernardo, Sheila, Carmen, Irune, Joana, Bea and Emilio for telling us their stories \u2013 sometimes about silences and sometimes silenced.<\/p>\n
If there\u2019s one thing I\u2019ve learned while doing these episodes it\u2019s that a silence cannot be broken if no one is listening. So thanks to those of you who have listened to these stories: you have created a cushion, a safety net, so that those who tell us their stories feel protected and accompanied in doing so. A kind of \u201cjump, we\u2019re here to pick you up.\u201d<\/p>\n
And there\u2019s another thing I\u2019ve learned: when a silence is broken, you don\u2019t know what will happen. It has unexpected consequences beyond that silence, and beyond whoever breaks it. And of course, this has also happened to me. So, after these stories of silences, I feel that perhaps now it\u2019s my turn to take care of mine.<\/p>\n
For now, it\u2019s time to slow down a bit and stop and think about how to continue. We\u2019ll keep you updated through our social networks and our newsletter. And you know we love to talk, so our ears and eyes are always open to whatever you want to tell us.<\/p>\n
And above all, the stories are still there, still here, waiting to be heard. If you want, recommend us to your friends, your family, your fellow comrades, and do subscribe to our channels. You can even rate us on Apple Podcasts, on Ivoox, on Podimo, or wherever you listen to podcasts: that helps other people find our stories.<\/p>\n
De eso no se habla is produced in the proud neighborhood of Lavapi\u00e9s, in Madrid, thanks to the support of PRX \u2013 Public Radio Exchange \u2013 and the Google Podcasts Creator Program.<\/p>\n
Thanks, thanks for listening.<\/p>\n
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