Victims of Civil War in Navarra

The Victims of the Civil War in Navarra resulted from the direct repression exerted by those infuriated from the Second Spanish Republic, in a territory quickly controlled by the designated edict, without resulting in actual war.^[1]

The Spanish Civil War began in Navarra, instigated by the Carlists and the Alfonsis monarchists. With the arrival of the new military governor in 1936, the general Emilio Mola, Navarra became a key piece of the military uprising that would take place on 18 July 1936.^[2]

Unlike elsewhere in Spain, in which the rebels had to face the power of the republican authorities or of left-aligned groups, the uprising in Navarra was a complete success, meeting little to no resistance.^[1][2]

However, this absence of opposition didn't prevent the unchaining of a hard repression against the adherents and supporters of the left, which resulted in many deaths. The violence affected mainly militants of the Federation of Workers of the Earth and the General Union of Workers with big predominance in the region of the Bank of Navarra, represented mostly peasants without land. The majority of deaths came in the first months of the war, a period of terror characterized by extrajudicial killings, walks and take out of prisoners of the places of reclusion.^[3][4] An additional element that contributed to increasing the number was the presence, in the proximity of Pamplona, of the Strong Saint Cristóbal, place of reclusion of several hundred of prisoners of the republican band during all the war. The extreme conditions of captivity and the famous escape that took place in May 1938, with a lot of deaths and the capture of the main part of the escapees, contributed also to increase the number of deaths.^[5] To the repression it is necessary to add the deaths produced like consequence of the republican air strikes.^[6]

The political violence unchained in Navarra after the triumph of the uprising has its roots in the political and social situation of Navarra, evidenced during the Republic. In this period Navarra was characterized by the Catholic and conservative character of this society and by his backward economy, that carried to one of the taxes of emigration higher of Spain.^[7][8] The social problems of land ownership was the major factor in the conflict, as during the republican period peasants lost access to the traditional communal lands (corralizas), mainly in the south of the province, to big landowners. The political tensions manifested in occasional violence and confrontations with political power, during the period when the right was in power, with the extreme poverty of the peasants.^[9] However, other political subjects of major importance during the republican period, like the Statute of autonomy Basque-Navarro, didn't have an important reflection in the repression that took place during the bellicose period, due to the fact that the feeling of Basque belonging was common and were the ideological differences those that avoided the aggregate statute, fundamentally the confesionality Catholic of the same.^[5]

Today it is acknowledged that more than 3,000 persons died in the period. To the term of the war, the francoist regime silenced these facts that purchased in the public opinion the consideration of tabú, while the scarce studies made tended to minimize his dimension. After the installation of the democracy, diverse investigations have achieved to reconstruct with detail the repressive phenomenon thanks to the impulse of the associations of familiars of the victims. This process culminated with the publication of the extensive work Navarra 1936. Of the Hope to the Terror that went expanding along the years until arriving to his last edition in 2008. Fruit of the knowledge of these studies made diverse homages, whose demonstration more important took place in 2003 with an official Statement of the Parliament of Navarra in favor of the recognition and moral repair of all those killed.^[2]

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