Forget-me-not
During Franco's rule a brutal practice of execution and burial in unmarked mass graves was common. An estimated 30,000 people remain in mass graves. Since the year 2000, several Spanish organisations have been working continually to find the mass graves and identify the victims. This forget-me-not pin is developed as a way to show your support for these efforts and to commemorate the people that disappeared.
All profits from the sale of the Forget Me Not pingo to Mapas De Memoria
Commemoration for who?
In 1940 Franco passed a decree to erect a memorial, the Valley of the Fallen, completed in 1959. Fallen Nationalists were buried and commemorated there, whilst thousands of Republicans bodies remained missing, their families were unable to mourn. In 1977, the Amnesty Law was passed, preventing the perpetrators of Spanish Civil War murders from being prosecuted, reinforcing the silence surrounding the mass graves.
Day of Memory
On October 21st 2022, the Democratic Memory Law was passed. Ten days later, October 31st was chosen as a National Day of Remembrance dedicated to all the victims from the war, and the dictatorship. The choice of this date is especially significant, because on 31st October 1978 the legitimate representatives of the Spanish people approved the Constitution in the General Courts.
On the Ground
Since the year 2000, several Spanish organisations have been working continually to find the mass graves and collect testimonies from the families of missing people. These specialist teams of forensic scientists and researchers then excavate the mass graves, so that the remains of the missing family members can finally be returned to their closest relations. The forensic scientists identify the remains which are found, using DNA testing. This continuous and important process of researching the mass graves and excavating them, requires more funding than the government has been contributing. The work is carried by forensic archeologists, historians and volunteers. It is necessary not only for the victims and their families, but for all the Spanish people.
Fallen but not Forgotten
The memorial pin developed by forensic archaeologist Nicholas Marquez-Grant and celebrated geopolitical artist Piers Secunda contributes to commemorate the disappeared. Wearing it on occasions such as the Day of Remembrance and other political occasions shows your solidarity and compassion towards the families of the victims. Wearing the pin also shows sympathy, as well as giving important financial support to the community of researchers who are working tirelessly to reconnect the families with the remains of their disappeared family members.
The Forget-Me-Not (Myosotis Sylvatica) flower grows wild across Spain and is easily recognisable for its powder blue flower clusters, with yellow centres. The enamelled metal badge designed by Piers Secunda, uses a Forget-Me-Not cluster with a teardrop shaped falling petal. A mark of sympathy, compassion and the enduring need to remember.
“Everywhere else, death is an end. Death comes, and they draw the curtains. Not in Spain. In Spain they open them. Many Spaniards live indoors until the day they die and are taken out into the sunlight. A dead man in Spain is more alive as a dead man than anyplace else in the world.”
The poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca pronounced these words 3 years before the start of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) that ended with the victory of Francisco Franco’s Nationalist Party. In 1936, Garcia Lorca was assassinated by the Nationalist forces, his body dumped in an unmarked grave. This brutal practice of execution and burial in unmarked mass graves was common during the war, and carried on until the death of Franco in 1975. An estimated 30,000 victims remain in mass graves