Francisco Bustelo on the difficulty of effacing the wounds of History

"Three years of civil war and thirty-six years of dictatorship have inevitably left deep wounds", writes the Spanish historian Francisco Bustelo. "What can we do to heal these wounds of History once and for all ? ... To forget the past is impossible, because that would mean effacing the memory of those who lived through it, of what fathers and grand fathers went through. It would require measures as absurd and unthinkable as not studying what has happened since 1931 in History faculties or censoring books and articles on the subject. ... The difficulty stems from the fact that there were victims on both sides of the Spanish Civil War [1936-1939]. Light has since been shed on some, while others have been forgotten. However, to now publish the names of those shot dead in the war means that victims from the other side will also have to be named, which could lead to an escalation in the 'war of the victims'."

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