EH Bildu, Geroa Bai and PSN signed in recent hours in Pamplona an agreement to resignify and demolish part of the Fallen, the second largest monument to Franco’s exaltation in Spain after Cuelgamuros and the first located in an urban environment. On the day that marks 49 years since the death of the dictator, three of the four parties that signed the motion of censure against the UPN and promoted Joseba Asiron (EH Bildu) to City Hall, seal an agreement to eliminate the architectural elements which include Francoist symbology and to launch the competition of ideas to give new meaning to the entire environment of the monument.
The Los Caídos architectural complex is located at the end of one of the Carlos III avenues, one of the main arteries of Pamplona, and which communicates at the other end with the central Plaza del Castillo. It was built in 1942 by the architect and member of the Carlist Central Council of Navarra Víctor Eusa in honor of the 4,500 Navarrese rebels who died during the civil war and to house the remains of the main leaders of the military uprising. in 1936. Mola and Sanjurjo, as well as six other fighters from the rebel camp, all exhumed in 2016 in accordance with the Memory Law. Historical.
The monument includes several elements which contain Francoist symbolism. One of them is the inscription engraved on the frontispiece of the main building, which reads: “Navarre to its dead in the Crusade”. The text has been covered with a tarpaulin for years, which allowed the complex to escape the Democratic Memory law. In addition, several inscriptions were also covered inside the monument, although the frescoes of the dome remained exposed, the work of the painter Ramón Stolz in which we see Francisco Javier baptizing in the East.
The agreement, which will be signed this Wednesday by the three political parties, provides that certain elements of Franco’s symbolism will be demolished and that the dome of the building will be covered. The complex will be re-signified and will become a space of memory which will bear the name of Maravillas Lamberto, the 14-year-old teenager raped and murdered by the Falangists in August 1936.
To do this, we will resume the process that Asiron opened during his previous stage as mayor, between 2015-2019, a competition of ideas from which seven projects selected by a jury were chosen and which, after initially canceled by the Administrative Court of Navarre (TAN), it already has all the guarantees to move forward.
