The Generalitat will search in graves for missing international brigade members in Catalonia

The Department of Justice of the Generalitat presented this Friday the Alvah Bessie programwhich aims to investigate the disappearance of international brigade members in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War. The initiative was presented this Friday at the Caputxins cemetery in Mataró (Maresme) in an act that was attended by the son of the American brigade member who gives the program its name, dan bessiein a space that houses graves with dozens of dead from this battalion of volunteers from the Republican side.

The Minister of Justice, Lourdes Ciuroexplained that the place “has not been improvised”, because “several brigade members who died in the hospital that the International Brigades set up here, in the city of Mataró, are buriedin the year 1938″. “We are in a place that speaks to us from silence”, declared Ciuró, after thanking Dan Bessie for giving his father’s name to baptize this historical memory project promoted by the General Directorate of Democratic Memory of the Generalitat.

Ciuró explained that “it is estimated that around 2,000 international brigade members disappeared” in Catalonia and that there is “the historical debt of giving them names and surnames“. He has also highlighted that this program represents the beginning of “an enormous amount of work to identify the disappeared persons” and has asked the families, within the framework of the genetic identification program, to offer their DNA samples in order to identify remains and return them.

“Thank Mr. Bessie who is with us today and who has given us his father’s name to illustrate, to give a name to this program that for us is loaded with symbolism, since what he does is disseminate democratic memory to avoid oblivion and, with oblivion, indifference”, highlighted Ciuró.

The “forgetfulness” in the United States

The mayor of Mataró, David Boat, has valued the initiative, which makes it possible to recognize the people who “helped the Republic, learn about our history, why it happened and, although we now have another war -in reference to Ukraine- make everything different”. “So that the values ​​of the Republic, of democracy, are always those that prevail in our city”, said Bote after noting that the City Council has worked on various initiatives to repair historical memory.

Also present at the event was the president of the Lincoln Brigade Archives Council, the Dutchman Sebastian Faber, whose organization is dedicated to collecting and disseminating the memory of brigade members from the United States. The Dutch researcher has lamented the “forgetfulness” that exists about this fact in the United Statesand has ensured that the program promoted by the Generalitat is very valuable, while a government officially recognizes these volunteer soldiers.

The event took place at noon, and began with a visit to the cemetery where authorities and the brigade member’s son were able to learn more about the mass graves of the Republican side that the cemetery houses.

alvah bessie

The Alvah Bessie program is a program that has an international vocation, because it wants to document the largest number of international brigade members who died or disappeared in Catalonia during the Civil War, and collect the places where they disappeared or were buried. Alvah Bessie was a brigade member from the United States who fought in the Battle of the Ebroand when he returned to his country of origin he wrote ‘Men in Battle’, one of the most eloquent testimonial works of the Spanish Civil War.

His participation as a brigade member and the subsequent work to publicize the war conflict in Spain have been what have motivated this historical memory program to be baptized with his name as a tribute.

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The International Brigades were a body within the Republican Army during the Civil War created to channel the enlistment of foreign volunteers who wanted to fight for the Republic, after the military coup of 1936 that triggered the conflict. The majority participated as soldiers, mostly in the shock forces -for which they accumulated notable casualties-, although there were also doctors, nurses or ambulance drivers.

More news from Mataro in the local edition of EL PERIÓDICO