The Government’s Directorate General for Democratic Memory has presented the exhibition of restored objects associated with 24 victims murdered by Franco’s regime who have been identified in recent years. More than 800 pieces found in the exhumations of the graves of the repression in the Balearic Islands are currently being restored.

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Civil War and Franco’s repression

At the event held this Sunday, the fully restored objects related to various graves exhumed in recent years were presented, including objects related to 24 victims murdered by Franco’s repression. These objects are associated with Guillermo Frau Moragues, Gabriel Ferriol Gelabert, Mariano Galiana Galiana, Gaspar Macià Ventaloni, Ignasi Picornell Femenias, Miquel Ques Torrens, Tomàs Seguí Seguí, Pedro Vallespir Amengual, Antoni Alomar Mas, Francesca Llull Font, Francesca Salas Llull, Pere Llull Fullana, Aurora Picornell Femenias, Belarmina González Rodríguez, Antònia Pascual Flaquer, Maria Pascual Flaquer, Catalina Flaquer Pascual, Antonio González Rodríguez, Jaume Bauzà Far, Miquel Monserrat Parets, Joan Monserrat Parets, Isaac Rodríguez Lagar and Francisco Solano Vera.

These are the objects associated with their bodies that were recovered in the 2020 and 2022 campaigns from the graves in the Son Coletes cemetery in Manacor, as well as from the first intervention in the Porreres cemetery.

Most of them are preserved items of clothing, such as buttons, buckles, zips and remains of footwear, as well as personal hygiene objects such as toothbrushes and combs.

Along with the restored objects from the identified victims of Son Coletes, this first act of returning objects also included other restored pieces from the Manacor cemetery, as well as from the graves of Selva and the Formentera prison.

These include, in addition to items of clothing and personal hygiene: objects related to health, such as jockstraps; others that correspond to militiamen, such as military insignia; and others that would correspond to the personal life of the victims, such as cigarette filters, lighters, purses, keys, coins, rings, etc. Among these restored items are Aurora Picornell’s pen and the rest of the objects associated with her companions, Belarmina González and the Roges del Molinar.

This is just a small sample of the more than 800 pieces that have been restored as part of this initiative, a pioneering one in Spain, which has allowed the consolidation of the objects exhumed in the first intervention in the Porreres grave and between 2020 and 2022 in the graves of the Balearic Islands, associated with the remains of the victims.

The event was attended by representatives of the families of almost all the victims who have been able to recover the objects or hand them over to the Government in order to send them to the museum sections, as established by law.