Josefina Fortea, 92, was seven when her father Jose, a farm laborer, faced a firing squad sent by General Francisco Franco. While she hardly knew him, receiving his remains 85 years later has brought some comfort https://reut.rs/40OEJO6 1/8
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The remains of 18 people executed by soldiers and buried in a mass grave during the years of repression that followed Spain's 1936-39 civil war were returned to their families as the country grapples with the legacy of Franco's fascist dictatorship 2/8
'At least I have this' to remember him by, Fortea said, holding a box with belongings found next to Jose's bones such as a button and a belt buckle 3/8
The details of why her father was shot remain obscure, like the rationale for so many of the victims, with files lost, kept secret or destroyed, but he was identified as a sympathizer of the Republic and therefore an enemy of Franco's Nationalists 5/8
The ceremony at the cemetery in Valencia suburb Paterna featured urns draped in the tri-color flag of the Second Spanish Republic that Franco overthrew 6/8
Archaeologists have so far exhumed the remains of some 1,500 out of the 2,238 people shot in Paterna by Francoist forces between 1939 and 1956 from dozens of mass graves 7/8
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