Abstract
The expectation that perpetrators’ confessions would set off a public debate did not occur in Spain. When confessions took place, they proved few, fleeting, or fugitive. Perpetrators vanished before a dialogue could begin. Many years had passed since the worst atrocities. Society, still haunted by the memory of these events, wanted to move on. The heroic confessions, which blamed Republicans for the violence that Francoist patriotic forces had to crush, overwhelmed and silenced any alternative version of the past. Spanish society was determined to avoid catalyzing contentious political and social debate over them. This chapter tracks these processes through the confessional acts of José Luis de Vilallonga.
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Notes
- 1.
During the winter of 1936, when Madrid was under siege by the Francoists, and the Republican government had run away to Valencia, approximately 2000 inmates from the jails of Madrid who were supposed to be transferred to other jails, were instead summarily executed by Republican forces in the surroundings of Paracuellos (20 km northeast of Madrid). Among them were leading right-wing intellectual figures and cadres. Francoist propaganda referred to them as the “martyrs of Paracuellos.” The event became one of the most important symbols of the repression carried out by their Republican enemies. The young Santiago Carrillo (who later became the head of the Spanish Communist Party from 1960 to 1982) was at that time in charge of prisons. His role in this murky and scandalous event, which occurred over several weeks—whether he carried it out or at the very least failed to stop it—has remained under suspicion.
- 2.
As it will be seen, the similarity with Vilallonga’s testimony is striking regarding the transformation from atrocity to routine. This testimony is part of Espinosa’s ongoing project; we are grateful for his allowing us to include it.
- 3.
The author stayed in France after the publication of his first novel, Las ramblas terminan en el mar (the first French edition was in 1953; the first Spanish edition in 1984), due to the criticisms the novel made of Francoism. According to a brief biography produced when he died, Vilallonga referred to his life as “scarred by the horrors experienced in the Civil War,” turning those experiences into an obsession. See “Un Grande de España ‘políticamente incorrecto,’” El Mundo, 30 August 2007 (Accessed: 21 October 2015). He subsequently wrote, “I have dealt with the Civil War in all of the books I have written, except two” (Vilallonga 1980: 220).
- 4.
At the film’s premier, Vilallonga remarked, “It is completely autobiographical. I have been asked three times to adapt the novel to film and I only accepted [the offer] this time on condition that they make a faithful representation of the book”. See “Un fotograma de la producción que dirige Pierre Boutron,” El Periódico, 26 June 1998 (Accessed: 21 October 2015).
- 5.
Vilallonga, incidentally, does not begin to write non-fictional accounts of his past until after the death of his father in 1974.
- 6.
In his subsequent confessions, he would report that he spent more than 15 days on the firing squad.
- 7.
In his 1980 book, Vilallonga expresses warmth for his father, justifying in an uncritical voice the rough experience he had. He even put these words in his father’s mouth: “For me, war is savage, but I do not think the same about Civil War. This seems right to me because you have in front of you a bastard who you know, even a relative of yours who screwed you somehow. You kill some guy who has been messing with you for twenty years. But killing a German, who you don’t know at all, who never did anything to you, that seems to me to be true savagery” (Vilallonga 1980: 223). In another anecdote, Vilallonga recounted how his father did not personally shoot, but “ordered to shoot” during the war as revenge for the many pairs of fine shoes that they had stolen from him while he was captured and held by the POUM during the Civil War (Vilallonga 1980: 230).
- 8.
José Luis de Vilallonga: “La nostalgia es un error,” El País, 22 April 1980.
- 9.
A Civil War expert corroborated these claims in his references to the Francoist executions: “During the first weeks, executions even became public spectacles in some provinces, and on 25 September 1936, the Valladolid newspaper, El Norte de Castilla, protested because of the massive influx of boys and girls to the executions” (Payne 1987: 226).
- 10.
As previously stated, the dictatorship’s legitimacy hinged on a narrative in which Republicans committed all the dreadful crimes and Franco’s forces put an end to the chaos and violence, thereby establishing peace and prosperity in Spain.
- 11.
“El filme ‘La vieja memoria’ de Jaime Camino, al Festival de Cine de San Sebastián,” La Vanguardia, 7 September 1978, Available at http://hemeroteca.lavanguardia.com/edition.html?bd=07&bm=09&by=1978&x=22&y=4&page=5 (Accessed: 24 March 2013). See also “Revolución y guerra fría,” El País, 20 September 1978.
- 12.
“El filme ‘La vieja memoria’ de Jaime Camino, al Festival de Cine de San Sebastián,” La Vanguardia, 7 September 1978. Available at http://hemeroteca.lavanguardia.com/edition.html?bd=07&bm=09&by=1978&x=22&y=4&page=5 (Accessed: 24 March 2013). Three days later, El País published the same article: “La vieja memoria,” El País, 18 October 1978.
- 13.
“‘La vieja memoria’ pretende levantar acta testimonial de la Guerra Civil,” El País, 13 March 1979. Available at http://elpais.com/diario/1979/03/13/cultura/290127606_850215.html (Accessed: 24 March 2013).
- 14.
“Jaime Camino ha abreviado ‘La vieja memoria’ para su emisión hoy en ‘La Clave,’” El País, 15 July 1983. Available at http://elpais.com/diario/1983/07/15/radiotv/427068001_850215.html (Accessed: 21 October 2015).
- 15.
In 2006, Camino converted the documentary La vieja memoria into a book, which demonstrates growing interest in the subject.
- 16.
“Las trampas de la memoria,” El País, 20 July 1997, available at http://elpais.com/diario/1997/07/20/radiotv/869349605_850215.html (Accessed: 21 October 2015).
- 17.
“Un fotograma de la producción que dirige Pierre Boutron,” El Periódico, 26 June 1998, available at http://archivo.elperiodico.com/ed/19980626/pag_054.html (Accessed: 21 October 2015).
- 18.
Armengou and Bellis (2004) published a book with the same title that provides details of testimonies they collected at the exhumation sites and the societal responses to them.
- 19.
The Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica (Association of Historical Memory—ARMH) emerged in 2000 with the mission to promote the memory, honor, and visibility of Republicans assassinated during the war and post-war era, mainly through exhumations consistent with survivors’ demands (Aguilar 2008a; Silva 2006). ARMH’s work had significant social, media, and political impact throughout Spain (Ferrándiz 2010, 2012).
- 20.
We thank Montserrat Armengou for providing us with the full transcript of her Vilallonga interview, including revelations left out of the documentary.
- 21.
Vilallonga also acknowledges in the documentary the systematic rape of women.
- 22.
“El silencio de los corderos,” La Vanguardia 10 June 2002, available at http://www.alay.com/hist1009.html (Accessed: 23 October 2015).
- 23.
There were some limited responses to Vilallonga’s declarations on newspaper websites. See, for instance, “Hay que buscar formas de convivencia más responsables, respetuosas y plurales,” El Periódico, 16 June 2002, http://archivo.elperiodico.com/ed/20020616/pag_012.html (Accessed: 23 October 2015).
- 24.
In January 2004, Spanish public television showed another documentary on this theme called Las fosas del olvido. Indeed, since about the middle of the 1990s, but certainly from 2000 onward, the interest in the past has taken off due in large part to the creation that year of the ARMH.
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Payne, L.A., Aguilar, P. (2016). Few, Fleeting, and Fugitive Confessions. In: Revealing New Truths about Spain's Violent Past. St Antony's Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56229-6_4
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