‘MY ANCESTORS ESCAPED GENERAL FRANCO’S BRUTAL REGIME’

The sun shines down on the neat avenues in Alicante’s municipal cemetery, which are lined with gravestones and vaults holding the remains of the town’s dead. It’s a peaceful spot away from the hubbub of this popular tourist resort. But for the past 82 years, it has been hiding a dreadful secret.

Last year, work began to exhume a mass grave found here dating from the Spanish Civil War that is thought to contain the remains of more than 400 people. In fact, it’s estimated that Spain has more than 2,380 such graves dating from the years of General Franco’s Fascist dictatorship. As many as 135,000 men, woman and children were killed, including Republican soldiers, Communists, trade unionists, intellectuals and their families. As the bodies are recovered and as many as possible identified, Spain tries to come to terms with a past so