The National Auditorium in Madrid yesterday hosted a state tribute to the victims of the military coup of 1936, the civil war and the dictatorship. The first to be held on the day designated for this purpose by the Law on Democratic Memory which has just entered into force. The celebration was presided over Pedro Sanchez and met virtually all of his executive.
Sánchez stressed that the fact that the law establishes October 31 as a day dedicated to all the victims of the military coup, war and dictatorship has an implicit relationship with October 31, 1978, the day of the approval of the Constitution in the courts. general. “This establishes a direct link between what that date stands for and the approval of a rule that has finally ensured the enduring roots so often denied to democracy in Spain,” added Sánchez.
The central moment of the act was the delivery of 20 diplomas of reparation to the victims and relatives of the victims of the war and the dictatorship. Among them were priests, union leaders, communists, nationalists, feminists, representatives of Freemasonry, LGTBI activists, fighters … A diploma of reparation for the memory of the Gijon man was included Melquiades Alvarez Gonzalez-Posada, founder of the Reformist Party, assassinated in the model prison in Madrid. A diploma that his great-grandson has collected, Manuel Alvarez-Buylla Ballesteros.
Although no one mentioned his name or received a diploma, the memory of his great-grandfather was very present in the hearts of three participants, the Zapico brothers. Ramon Velasco, by Sama de Langreo. His great-grandchildren were in charge of putting on music with his “Forma Antiqva” lineup. “Let me cry” was played by George Frideric Handel – “Let me cry” in Spanish – in the soprano’s voice Maria Bayo and recognize Aaron Zapico which for them was not just another performance. “It had tremendous significance. Professionally, for the visibility that acting in front of such a determined audience gives us; but above all personally, because we are the great-grandchildren of one of those thousands of victims. To our great-grandfather, Ramón Velasco, a leftist but who had not had a great political significance, one day they took him away for an anonymous denunciation of the neighborhood, and shot him, he was just 32 years old and 4 children. If my grandmother, Margarita Velasco, was alive, this act would have excited and even more our participation. It is a pride to have been here “, acknowledged Aarón Zapico.
In Asturias, the Asturian Socialist Federation also convened an act on the day of commemoration, centered on women victims of Francoism. participated Constance Pagegreat-granddaughter of one of the “Thirteen Roses”, Luisa Carcedo (FSA), Veronica Noval (FSA), Carmen Suarezof the Francisco Barreiro Foundation, e Carolina Lashera (Thirteen Asturian roses). Luisa Carcedopresident of the Pablo Iglesias Foundation, stressed that women “were victims for three reasons: for their own political activism; for their familiarity with other militants and for the suppression of all their civil and political rights”.
