Franco's Mass Graves: Breaking the Silence in Spain

Emilio Silva Barrera, a prominent Spanish journalist, recounts his tireless search for, and discovery of, the body of his grandfather, a civilian who was murdered by fascist gunmen in the first months of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) and left in a roadside ditch. Due to the pervasive fear that permeated daily life in that country, many thousands of victims of politically-motivated crimes were never discovered, no questions were asked, no justice served. Thanks to Silva's determination to right the wrongs of Spain's totalitarian past, the silence imposed by repression is being broken.

Silva's determination to help families of "disappeared" relatives led him to create the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory. This group is dedicated to the discovery, exhumation, identification and return of the remains of victims of political violence during and after the Spanish Civil War to their families for proper burial.

Anyone who has ever felt powerless in the face of a seemingly impossible hurdle and asked, "But what can one person do?" should read this book.