Bebel García (1914-1936), one of Bleach Brothersis a myth of Deportivo, the blue and white shirt which alternated with the red of the Unified Socialist Youth. This is what Eduardo Galeano said in the story in which he recounts his execution. In Last wishthe footballer, just 22 years old, ordered the firing squad to stop to slowly unbutton his fly and, looking towards them, “take a long piss”, button himself up again and tell them: “Now, yes”. Beyond this gesture for the legend, what has never been known is what happened to the body of Bebel, that of his brother France and that of Enrique Moscoso, Or the Christ of Vioñoafter his assassination. A mystery that historian Rubem Centeno managed to reveal almost 90 years later. And that’s just the tip of what appears to be a huge iceberg.
“12th tomb of the 3rd extension department.” The dry administrative prose of the burial book, cited by The Galician idealconfirms that they were buried in this area of the San Amaro cemetery, the historic cemetery that faces the Atlantic in the same neighborhood of Monte Alto where the footballer lived. Under its soil, according to Centeno, could be “the largest mass grave of the Franco regime in Galicia”, with some 250 bodies buried clandestinely.
Bebel appears in the register under number 721; France, with 722; Moscoso, with the 723. After the coup d’état, the three participated in the night surveillance of the Defense Committee of the Republic, installed at the headquarters of the Civil Government. By day, they could be seen on the barricades of the city streets, where their older brother, Pepín, played an important role.
When the fall of La Coruña was inevitable, Bebel, France and another of their brothers, Jaurés, tried to flee to Asturias, where resistance against the fascists continued. However, they were arrested in the town of Guitiriz, Lugo, and, after a mock trial, sentenced to death. Initially, Jaurés – 17 years old – was spared because he was a minor and was sentenced to life in prison. However, a year later, in what looked like a transfer of prisoners to the Pamplona prison, the Civil Guard took three of the prisoners – Jaurés, José María Eirís and Leovigildo Taboada – to Campo da Rata, a plot of land across from Pamplona prison. sea, at the foot of the Tower of Hercules, where hundreds of republicans – including Bebel and France – had been shot and where the so-called law of flight had been applied to them. Following his assassination, Jaurés, who had just turned 18, obtained a commutation of his death sentence to 20 years in prison.
THE Bleach Brothers
Since 2002, a street in Monte Alto has recalled the Bleach Brothersthe eight children of José and Conchita García. He was from Ribadeo, on the border between Lugo and Asturias, and she was from Castropol, on the other side of the border. Because of his socialist activities, José was banished 150 kilometers from the city of Lugo. He therefore settled in La Coruña, where he opened the bleach company which would give the family its nickname. The ideals they shared were reflected in the first names of their children: after José – the eldest and the only one baptized – came France, Bebel, Jaurés, Voltaire, Conchita, Belgium and Berthelot. Its fame reached such a point that, during the years of the Republic, the city’s wealthy families would frighten their children with the Bleach Brothers as we would do today with coconut.
Small in stature and with a courageous character, it is easy to imagine that Bebel is a sort of David Mella, the very young right winger who today delights the crowd that fills Riazor, becoming one of the symbols of the The youth team that brought Deportivo out. from hell. semi-professional categories.
“He was a good striker, a right winger. Although very small, almost a dwarf, he had fabulous conditions for playing football. But I had something else in mind. This is how he remembered it in 2008 in The voice of Galicia another myth – this one on the pitch – from Deportivo, Rodrigo García Vizoso. The data collected by The ideal We are talking about a Bebel who played at Deportivo for three seasons – 32/33, 33/34 and 35/36, after passing through La Coruna -, played 22 matches and scored 6 goals. It was a team that had a hard core of 15 professionals and the rest with amateur records, among whom was Bebel himself, “left-handed in the game and in thinking”, in the words of Galeano.
“He was a very good boy, very funny, although a little childish, and very courageous. “He faced the police and whatever was necessary.” A year before the civil war, Bebel was arrested with France and 40 others on Durmideiras beach, Monte Alto, where they were carrying out “training exercises” and “singing subversive songs”, dressed in red shirts.
THE Bleach Brothers They combined their socialist activism with sports practice. While Bebel played football and France boxed, José, known as Pepín, practiced athletics. He was arrested for his participation in the revolutionary general strike of 1934 and the coup surprised him as secretary of the Unified Socialist Youth of La Coruña. He lost a leg in the Battle of Brunete and a daughter in a bombing raid, but managed to board the Winnipeg, the ship that Pablo Neruda placed at the disposal of the Republicans, and fled to Buenos Aires, where it became a reference for the colony of emigrants and exiles. After the death of the dictator, he returned to La Coruña, where he died in 1996. His remains were buried in the monument to Mortos da Liberdade, in the same cemetery of San Amaro where, without his knowledge, his brothers rested.
The tip of the iceberg
This lack of knowledge of what lies beneath the soil of San Amaro is not exclusive to the Garcías. Until today, it was not known what happened to the bodies of hundreds of people who fought back after being executed by the fascists in places like Campo da Rata. The research of Rubem Centeno, A society silenced: the hidden tombs of Francoism in the city of La Coruñaconcludes that in the cemetery, now municipal, there were clandestine burials of the victims of the rebels. Thus, they could be “the most important tombs in Galicia”, according to the Commission for the Recovery of the Historical Memory of La Coruña (CRMH), collaborator of Centeno in a work that presented its conclusions this Wednesday at the headquarters of the Alexandre Boveda. Cultural association.
“These are people who, in some cases, have been moved to cemetery niches – in San Amaro itself or in others in the A Coruña area – but in other cases they can remain there” , explains the CRMH. In addition to anonymous people who have not yet been identified, the work made it possible to discover “surprising” examples. Among the bodies transferred, the former civil governor of La Coruña, Francisco Pérez Carballo, and the mayor of Sada, Antonio Fernández Pita. Among those who could still be there, the father and brother of legendary singer Pucho Boedo. In addition, of course, to two of the Bleach Brothers. Or maybe three.
