The footprint (Monument to the Basque Soldier)

The inauguration of The Footprint (Monument to the Basque Soldier), shown in the photo, in 2006 is one of a number steps taken in the 21st century to recover the memory of the Basques who supported and died for the Republic. 

20,970 people were killed in the Basque Country during the Civil War and the postwar until 1945. Almost two thirds were caused by the military rebels. In addition, in the thirteen months between July 1936 and August 1937 that the war lasted, 100,000 Basques went into exile, including more than 10,000 children. 

A 2005 Amnesty International report said that Spain had not implemented a true state policy to address the right to reparations of the victims of Francoism. The situation in the Basque Country was little different. The initial reparations measures instituted focussed on providing economic assistance to some victims. The first law, which was passed in 1983, three years after the first session of the Basque parliament, covered only senior members of the Basque administration and some trusted officials of the Basque government established in 1936.  

The new millennium brought a major change. Popular mobilization and the existence of more than fifty memory associations led politicians to address the situation. A decree issued in November 2002 recognized for the first time that “no indemnity can restore to the people affected and their families what they lost due to the repression… for their struggles for freedom”. Two years later, an agreement between the Basque government and the Aranzadi Science Institute accelerated the process of locating and identifying the remains of people who had disappeared during the war. There had been almost fifty successful exhumations by the end of 2022. The excitement that accompanied the exhumations made it possible to fully appreciate the suffering of the victims. 

In 2005, the government announced a Comprehensive Peace and Reconciliation Plan based on respect for human rights that specifically mentioned restoring the memory of the victims of Francoism. It also recognized that Basque society owed them a “debt”.  The strategy set out in the plan included celebrating public events of reconciliation, restoring historical patrimony, and inaugurating monuments to the victims. Some of these include the Artxanda Gudari monument to the soldiers of the Basque army (2006), the monument to the sailors of the Battle of Matxitxako (2007), and the one to the resistance during the Battle of Intxorta (2007). 

The biggest step forward in memory policies came after the passage of the national Law of Historical Memory in 2007. In 2014, the Basque parliament passed a law creating the Gógora Institute for Memory, Coexistence and Human Rights. Since its creation, the Institute has also become the point of reference for research about and recognition of the victims of the war and dictatorship in the Basque Country. 

UB/ MJV