Young Basque nationalists being led to the place of execution

The photograph shows a group of Basques condemned to death by the Francoists being led to the place of execution.

The rebel conquest of Bilbao on June 19, 1937 and the fall of the rest of the western part of Vizcaya province in the following weeks brought the Francoist repression there. A state of war declared on June 20, made all crimes committed since July 18, 1936 liable to summary trials. Unlike in Alava and Gipúzkoa, in Vizcaya the new regime employed specially created legal instruments to carry out the political and social repression. In the months that followed the fall of Bilbao, the Francoist courts were the scene of frenetic activity as they processed thousands of cases. Almost 15,000 were dealt with in the first six months alone.

Thousands of people were arrested. In addition to politicians and soldiers (gudaris) from the Basque army and members of the militias, these included anyone suspected of political, union or social “responsibilities”. These people could spend months in legal limbo while the charges and denunciations made against them were investigated. Once these were proven, the court martial began. The accused were taken from the prison to one of the court rooms of the High Court where they were tried without any procedural guarantee. They were then returned to jail where the prison authorities would inform them of the verdict.

Executions usually took place at dawn. The condemned were taken from their cells to the chapel, where they took communion and confessed. They could write farewell letters to their families. Then they were sent to the Vista Alegre cemetery to be shot by a firing squad. Others were executed by the much crueler garrote, a method created in the Middle Ages, in which the condemned were choked to death. These executions took place in the patio of the Larrinaga prison, which terrified the inmates.

In Bilbao, 506 people were executed after being convicted by courts martial. 35 were garroted; the rest were shot against the wall of the Vista Alegre cemetery. 294 of the executions were carried out in 1937, many of them in mid-December; 100 in 1938, 28 in 1939 and 34 between 1940 and 1945.

In 2002, the Basque government designated made the walls where the executions were carried out as places of memory.

JP / UB / MJV