The elaboration of the map of graves is the starting point of the policies of Democratic Memory and will allow the Government to move forward with the deployment in Menorca of initiatives and projects such as the installation of Trees and Stones of Memory or the delivery of Certificates of Victims of Francoism.

TDB keeps you informed. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

According to historian David Ginard, Franco’s repression in Menorca caused a total of more than 200 murders between 9 February 1939 and 3 February 1945. The military tribunals handed down numerous death sentences and long prison sentences, most of them for “joining the rebellion”. Some were commuted to 30 years’ imprisonment, but even so, many condemned prisoners were executed in the years following 1939.

In the fortress of La Mola (Maó) alone, up to 150 Republicans were shot. To these should be added the Menorcans executed in Palma and the sailors from Menorca executed in Cartagena. Also the victims of the Nazi concentration camps: at least 19 Menorcan Republican officers were sent to Mauthausen, of whom only 3 survived. The last shooting at La Mola was supposed to have taken place on 3 February 1945, almost six years after the end of the Civil War.

The Balearic Government’s Fourth Plan of Action on Civil War and Francoist Graves (2022-2023) will include research into these and other events that took place on the island in order to draw up a map of graves from the Civil War and Francoist repression in Menorca.

The study will be added to the existing Maps of Graves of Mallorca, Ibiza and Formentera to complete the Map of Graves of the Balearic Islands.

The research will include an in-depth analysis of the historical context and the sites of Franco’s repression; a study of the victims who were returned to their families and those who were not returned, but are known to be buried in a specific niche; and the preparation of a list of family members.

In addition, all those who were buried without names will be investigated; the exact location of the niches and other possible burial sites will be worked on; and the numerous judicial and military cases will be studied.

The result, which will be captured in a geolocated map, will include photographic documentation and will make it possible to determine the number of victims and relatives and to mark the location of the former graves, niches and places of repression and burial, including those places where the remains of victims no longer exist but where it has been demonstrated that they were there.

The investigation will also study the feasibility of intervening in the different burial sites with a view to possible exhumations.

The elaboration of the Map of Graves is, according to the Law of Graves 10/2016, the starting point to implement the policies of Democratic Memory that allow to fulfil the obligations that the State has with the victims of the disappearances of the Civil War and Francoism, and also with their relatives, a competence that is also attributed to the Govern. It demands “that all graves must be at least located, marked, protected and preserved in accordance with Law 12/1998 on the historical heritage of the Balearic Islands” and “proceed to another means of reparation” when the exhumation and identification of the remains of the disappeared persons cannot be carried out because “it is not viable”.

In this sense, the elaboration of the Map of Graves of Menorca will allow the Government to advance in the implementation on the island of other initiatives and projects of reparation that have already been launched in different parts of the autonomous community, also in Menorca, such as: the marking of graves and burial sites through the Trees of Memory; the delivery of Certificates of Victims of Francoism to the relatives of the repressed people; or the placement of Stones of Memory that remember the victims in their places of origin.