Click image to zoom

The Valley Of The Fallen

Views of the Valley of The Fallen on 23 August 2018 in San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Spain. The remains of fascist dictator Francisco Franco could soon be removed from a state-funded mausoleum, “El Valle de los Caídos” (The Valley of the Fallen), under a plan by Spain’s socialist government to transform the monument into a place to remember the civil war rather than glorify the dictatorship.Opened by Franco himself in 1959, the Valley houses a Catholic basilica set into a hillside near Madrid , where the founder of Spain’s fascist Falange party, Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, is also interred. It has long been a site of pilgrimage for far-right groups in Spain.The complex was built between 1940 and 1958 and is a monument intended to commemorate all those who died on both sides during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). A percentage of the construction workforce was comprised of convicts, some of whom were Spanish Republican political prisoners.About 40,000 Nationalist and Republican soldiers are buried here. Many of those interred there fought for the losing Republican side and were moved to the monument under Franco’s dictatorship without their families’ permission.The announcement of the Government on the exhumation of the remains of Franco has multiplied the influx of tourists. (Photo by Alvaro Hurtado/NurPhoto)

Photo Details

Related Keywords