“It was a coincidence, pure luck and the result of work as important as it was necessary,” recognizes Koldo Hierro on the other side of the phone. They have just explained to him that his grandfather’s brother, Benigno Hierro, disappeared during the civil war and that his grandfather, despite searches, was never found, was buried all this time in a mass grave from the Amorebieta-Etxano cemetery. And he, who never looked for it nor hoped to find it, cannot help but express his joy. “For me, family is the most important thing,” he adds.
Benigno Hierro Pinedo was from Ortuella (Bizkaia), he worked as a miner, was married and had two children, Palmira and Daniel. He fought in the 10th “Perezagua” battalion of the Communist Party of Euskadi and died in combat on April 7, 1937, at the age of 31, according to the Register of Dead in the Field, preserved in the Provincial Historical Archives of Biscay . His wife died in the 1980s, although the exact date is not recorded in his niche, and his son Daniel died in 1998. Palmira is still alive, but as Koldo explains, at 92, he suffers from dementia and is not entirely aware that they have found his father. “He lives in a convent in Barcelona. I’m so sorry that her father came and she didn’t know. She was very little when she disappeared, but a father remains a father. We will try to tell you and we hope you can understand it,” he says.
The one who is aware of the importance of the discovery is the father of Koldo, Benigno’s nephew. “We are all in shock because we didn’t expect it. My mother had never spoken about him, but when we saw on television that the remains of Ortuella’s neighbor had been found, she immediately said: “that’s my uncle.” And that’s how it happened,” he explains. Koldo was contacted by a historian who located him after learning Benigno’s last name. They carried out DNA tests on him , his father and Benigno’s daughter Palmira, and they all matched that of the missing person.
Now his goal is for Benigno to rest in the niche with his wife and son at the Ortuella cemetery and for this Koldo has already requested the authorizations he needs. When they are returned to him, he hopes to organize an event in the city in honor of Benigno. “We want the neighborhood and the city where he lived all his life to know where he was and how he died, and that he rests in peace with his wife and son,” Koldo said after thanking the institutions for their research efforts. for the missing public, in particular the Basque Institute of Memory (Gogora). “It’s not because it’s our turn, we have always been in favor of finding all the missing people. How many bodies will there be in mass graves? The work they do and the treatment they give us is exquisite. In our case, we hadn’t even looked for it, but there are many families who spend their whole lives looking for their loved ones and it’s something very hard, but it’s comforting to find them,” concludes -he.
From the Basque Institute of Memory (Gogora), they specify that the historical documentation includes the place and date of death and that his death was also registered in the civil registry of Amorebieta-Etxano. Despite this, his burial location was unknown, he was listed as missing in action in the database of deaths during the Gogora Civil War and his family did not know the burial location either. In this case, the collaboration of the “Ortuella Memory Table” and that of the local researcher Juan Ignacio Rodríguez Camarero stand out, in addition to the Hierro family when it comes to providing their DNA.
Benigno Hierro Pinedo is the fourth identified in the Amorebieta cemetery. To date, the remains of Adolfo Cengotitabengoa Izurza, Jaime Iñiguez Nieva and Enrique Contreras have been identified and returned to their families. The handover of Benigno’s remains to his family will take place soon, once agreed with the family. Remember that three excavation campaigns have been carried out in this cemetery, since December 2023, during which the mortal remains belonging to 104 people were found.
After the exhumations, and once the remains have been analyzed, the hypothesis is that the people, all men, buried in this funerary area of the cemetery are those of fighters who died on the different fronts of the area or those who died after being wounded, he was transported to the Amorebieta military hospital. This is evidenced by some material finds, such as bandages, surgical scissors, as well as evidence of amputations in the skeletal remains.
The Gogora Institute continues to work to contact more relatives of those missing in war to enable the genetic identification of the remaining 100 people. To this end, he once again calls on the families of those missing in the area to contact the Institute so that the process that could lead to a possible identification can begin. This can be done by email or telephone. gogora@euskadi.eus | 944032845
