Monument to Franco may be converted into memorial to his victims

[emad]

The Independent
By Elizabeth Nash in Madrid
29 March 2005


The deep subterranean crypt is topped by a granite cross that towers above the mountainside north of Madrid, and can be seen for miles. Francisco Franco's mausoleum at the Valley of the Fallen, democratic Europe's last national monument to a dictator, has been a scar on Spain's conscience for decades.

But as pressure mounts within ruling socialists' ranks to challenge this extravagant homage to the dictator, plans are afoot to transform Franco's celebration of triumph and revenge into a memorial to his victims. "Our aim is to convert the mausoleum into a study centre of Francoism to explain to people the meaning of the dictatorship and its horrors," said Jaume Bosch, a Senator in Spain's upper house and vice-president of Catalunya's Left-Green Initiative (ICV), part of the region's Socialist coalition.

José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's government planned a draft law proposing a change in the orientation of the monument to put to parliament before June, Mr Bosch said yesterday. The government had confirmed its intentions in confidential meetings with the Senator in recent weeks, Mr Bosch said.

"It's the perfect site to be converted into a study and education centre," said the Senator. "We must explain why and how the Valley of the Fallen was constructed in the style of great Nazi monuments."

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=624455

[fertilizeonarbusto]

1. I've been there

Even my ultra-reactionary father describes the cross as "intended to squash the human beholder in front of it." Creepy place.

[Tracer]

2. I've been there too.

What a cold, cold place (and I'm not talking about the weather).

[Matilda]

3. I too have visited it, and found it grandiose, but very beautiful.

The only thing wrong with it was its dedication to Franco; I found
that uncomfortable.

I would keep it as a basilica, but remove Franco's tomb, and
rededicate it to those prisoners who lost their lives building it.

[fertilizeonarbusto]

5. nice idea n/t

[bemildred]

4. A pity Franco is not here to see. nt