Mª José García Hernandorena and Isabel Gadea i Peiró: Ethnography of an Exhumation. A case study for Pit 100 in the Paterna Cemetery. Valencia Provincial Council. Delegation of Historical Memory
This is the most significant social anthropological study carried out on the Paterna graves. The authors focus specifically on Grave Pit 100, which contained the remains of 27 murdered men, almost all from the Safor region. The study originates from a three-week period spent at the grave site (this is how long it took the members of Arqueoantro to exhume the bodies) and 22 interviews. The work describes the complexity of the various tasks, demands, memorial acts etc., that surrounded the lives of the people and institutions linked to this grave pit. In this way, family life is brought to prominence with the testimonies of four generations of relatives of the murdered victims; the activities of the association (the Grave Pit 100 association itself, its integration into the Platform of Associations for the victims of Fracoism for Paterna’s various Grave Pits); political/administrative activity (relations with the Provincial Council, the Paterna City Council, the Ministry of Participation, Transparency, Cooperation and Democratic Quality); legal activities (the repression, the summary trials, the inadequacy of reparation mechanisms that resulted in some of the relatives joining the Querella Argentina); media, cultural and artistic activities (representation in the press and the production of a documentary by the NERVI production company); and, finally, a section dedicated to the impact on the individual lives of the 27. The cover of the book was designed by the renowned cartoonist Ana Penyas.
Pedro Luis Alonso
Translation by Luis Barra