“Executed” shoe

This boot was found in in the mass grave in the Santa Eulalia de Vilacoba cemetery in Lousame (La Coruña) during an exhumation carried out in late 2022 to locate the remains of Manuel García Hermo, a tailor who had been buried there on 30 August 1936, less than a kilometer from where he had been “taken for a ride”.

According to the Nomes e Voces database, murders like this, performed outside any formal judicial proceedings, represent 38.5 per cent of all the murders in Galicia between 1936 and 1939. The prior historical report indicates that, in addition to Manuel’s, this grave contains the remains of four other people. This is in line with the majority of such graves in Galicia, which are located in Church cemeteries and contain a relatively small number of victims.

The forensic team’s initial observations coincided with the available information about the victim: a 37-year-old male murdered in 1936. However, the DNA results ruled out a kinship relationship with Manuel’s family members. On the basis of the remains of saponified bullet fragments found in the brain did confirm a violent death. This made it possible to confirm that while the remains were not Manuel’s, they did belong to a “victim of 36”.

Among the remains of his clothing, this   size 40 or 41 leather boot with a rubber heel and iron studs stands out. The high-quality materials, the colours and the style invite an intersectional reflection on class and gender. Leather shoes indicate someone of a different socio-economic position than someone wearing sandals finished with bits of rubber or tire. With regard to gender, 

This man’s shoe contrasts with women’s shoes that have been uncovered, especially high-heel skin and wood ones set into the metatarsal bone of Individual 23 in grave 115 of the Paterna cemetery in Valencia, which holds the remains of more than two thousand murdered people. Thanks to the work of the multidisciplinary team from ArqueoAntro, we know that they belonged to Vicenta Mena Mahiques, who was executed on 8 March 1940. The height of the heel and the cut make us think that, perhaps, this anarchist seamstress was wearing her best shoes when she was executed, as a gesture of resistance against her death sentence.

UOG/CLS