Catalonia identifies 1,000 civil war mass graves and recovers 1,023 bodies

This article contains images of human remains

Since the start of the century, the Catalan government has documented around a thousand mass graves from the Spanish Civil War and early years of the Franco dictatorship, but it has excavated only 137, thanks largely to a mass grave plan launched in 2017.

A thousand bodies have been recovered from these sites, but only 34 have been fully identified using DNA.

More than 8,000 people have been registered as missing by their families.
In an interview with the Catalan News Agency (ACN), Catalonia's Director General for Democratic Memory, Francesc Xavier Menéndez, acknowledges that progress has been slower than hoped.

He says excavations began far too late, but the priority now is to fully identify the bodies that can be identified and to give those that remain anonymous a dignified burial.

"Time is against us"

Reflecting ahead of the 50th anniversary of Franco's death – November 20 – Menéndez admits that policies regarding democratic memory "started late," hindering efforts to locate and identify graves and remains.

Juli Cuéllar, a technical expert at the Directorate General for Democratic Memory also interviewed by ACN, agrees.

Cuéllar notes that 25 years ago, experts believed all graves could be opened and their bodies identified within a few years but the realities of forensic work have proven more complex.

One of the first Civil War mass graves in Spain to be officially opened using forensic methods was at Priaranza del Bierzo, León, in 2000 – 25 years after Franco's death.

In Catalonia, the first graves excavated using standardized scientific protocols were opened in 2004, but the government's first official mass grave plan was not approved until 2017.

Menéndez says policies on reopening mass graves are "relatively recent," noting that democratic authorities were slow to take up the issue.

Even so, he insists that Catalonia is carrying out solid, methodical and continuous work, hoping that the passage of time will not make it even harder to identify victims and families, and that new scientific techniques will allow further advances.

Cuéllar offers a similar assessment, saying the result of work to date has been "positive but clearly insufficient."

"We’ve been able to help many families, but time is against us, and that is deeply frustrating," he says.

The more distant the family relationship, the harder it is to contact relatives, and then to establish the genetic link needed to confirm identification.

Time also hampers the search for graves outside cemeteries, as land may be disturbed by construction works. Those graves are therefore treated as a priority.

At first, experts thought exhumations and identifications would be quick, given that just 17 graves had been identified by 2003. Over time, it became clear this was unrealistic.

A total of 1,005 graves have now been documented, half of them in cemeteries, and Menéndez is unwilling to offer any timeline for completion.

In total, 137 graves have been excavated: 25 between 1999 and 2017, and 112 since the approval of the first mass grave plan in 2017.

Menéndez says the Catalan government spends more than a million euros a year on excavations. More funding could speed up the work, but only to a point, he explains, because each grave must first be precisely located and documented.

The government receives a grant from the Spanish Ministry of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, and he fears that if the conservative People's Party and far-right Vox were to gain power, funding could be cut.

Prioritizing recovery over faction

The Catalan government does not classify graves by the side the victims fought for, but rather the likelihood of finding the grave at the suspected location, whether it is within a cemetery or not, whether it has been "dignified" or not, and the types of victims buried.

A single grave may contain different types of burials, for example, victims of bombings, victims executed behind Republican lines, Republican soldiers, or Francoist soldiers.

Experts, therefore, see little sense in classifying graves by faction, and the government has never treated graves differently depending on the faction of those buried.

There are four graves – two of which are within cemeteries – where Francoist soldiers have been found. Recently, at the Montcada i Reixac cemetery just outside Barcelona, a memorial space was created for victims executed in Republican-held areas. 

According to Cuéllar, the top priority is recovering surface-level bone remains, as they are the most vulnerable to deterioration. Next are the graves located outside cemeteries – in trenches, areas behind the front lines, or field hospitals.

Graves inside cemeteries are generally easier to document and locate, though they, too, pose challenges.

Missing persons register

The register of missing persons includes 8,158 names. Of these, 5,502 (67.5%) are soldiers: 4,751 from the Republican army, 222 from the Nationalist army and 527 whose affiliation is unknown. The remaining 2,656 (32.5%) are civilians or people whose status could not be determined.

A total of 1,023 bodies have been recovered, but only 34 have been forensically identified – seven before the 2017 mass grave plan and 27 since.

In around 700 cases, although DNA testing has not been able to confirm the identity of the body, documentary evidence has made it possible to determine the individual's place and circumstances of death and even where they were buried.

When relatives report a Civil War disappearance to the register, they are asked to provide as much information as possible, and they are sent a kit to extract DNA, which is analysed at Barcelona's Vall d'Hebron Hospital. The samples are stored in case remains of the relative are later discovered.

Menéndez notes that in some cases family members had no idea they even had a relative buried in a mass grave.

Spain-wide database

The director general argues that responsibility for this work should not rest only with Catalonia and a few other Autonomous Communities. The Spanish government, he says, must create a nationwide database – which is currently being developed – as well as a digital map of all graves in Spain.

Cuéllar points out that soldiers moved across many territories during the war, and their families often moved in the decades that followed.

As a result, Catalan soldiers may be buried in graves elsewhere in Spain, and soldiers from other regions may be buried in Catalonia without the knowledge of their families, who may now live in yet another area.

In fact, the Catalan government lacks reliable information on Catalans buried outside Catalonia.

However, it does know of 1,449 people from outside Catalonia who have requested information about cases listed in Catalonia's missing persons register.

Cuéllar says that for many years the Catalan administration has effectively "filled the gaps" left by other authorities – including the Spanish state – as many families from across Spain have contacted the Catalan government in an attempt to find out whether their relatives might be buried in Catalonia.

International Brigades

There is also a specific programme for members of the International Brigades who fought in Spain.

Since 2022, the government has documented the names of 872 members of the International Brigades who may be buried in Catalonia.