"All this is surrounded by a Francoist odor, everything is pre-constitutional and has never been touched at this time." Pako Etxeberria Aranzadi's coroner explains this to the announcer of the Basque Radio Boulevard program, when he asks about the excavations being carried out in Cuelgamuros.

Etxeberria has denounced the constant pressure of the far right: "We have seen incredible concentrations, with flags, roads and accesses, that were scary. We tried to go unnoticed, but they found us completely and photographed us."

He explained that they had all kinds of obstacles: the ultra-right associations have appealed to stop excavations, and at some point the courts have managed to get them ordered. "But in the end the court itself said first of all that there is the right of the relatives of the victims, that the "peace of the dead".

Etxeberria has a great experience working in different situations, but he recognizes that it is the place itself that produces a certain emotion: "Thousands of people raised, not only on the entrance esplanade, are everywhere." The idea of the government is to give new meaning to the place, but it says that, at the moment, when entering the basilica there is nothing to explain why the building is there and how it was built with slave labor.

He has also explained that they have suffered the sabotages and is convinced that behind them there are extreme people on the right. "They have sent us letters advising us because we believe we can bear some responsibility." He hasn't used the word "threat," but he has been "advised."

Family visits

For the first time, several relatives of Republican victims have been able to enter the Falls Valley to learn first-hand about the excavations being carried out there, among them some from the Basque Country.

At the moment, the remains of 12 people have been identified, but there are thousands – some 33,000, according to various sources – although the state of bones is not good, because the deposits are sunk. Thus, archaeologists have recognized that in many cases it will be very difficult to recover the remains that family members have sought for so many years.

Testimony of Jasone Aretxabaleta

Among those who have been in Cuelgamuros these days is Jasone Aretxabaleta, and several media outlets have gathered their testimony. So far they believed that a man of yours was buried in the Markina-Xemein cemetery.

During the 1936 War, the Falangists, subject to the arrest and release of their father, forced Jasone's uncle, Alesander Aretxabaleta, to fight on the Franco side, but never liberated his father and died on Alesander's front.

His name appeared on a list made by Gogorak in 2019, which was located not in Markina-Xemein, but in the Falls Valley. "We couldn't believe," he explains to the public newspaper. Like many others, they took the corpse without any permission, only the most fascist."

Aretxabaleta has denounced the long process they have suffered since to recover the bones of their uncle, and it is clear that this prolongation is due not only to the situation of the deposits, but also to the obstacles that are being judicially and otherwise: "They have done everything, they have put glue on them so that they do not open doors in the lock."

The fascists of Cuelgamuros want to close the doors so that the wind does not lead forever the smell of Franco.