Old and New Belchite

Sunday 14 September

On the doorway of  St Martins' church in Belchite one of the last inhabitants wrote a touching farewell message : "Village of old Belchite, you will no longer hear children playing and singing, or  the traditional jota dances of our fathers". Its people were moved to the new Belchite in 1954, and the ruins left as a monument to the fallen Catholic martyrs on his side, a propaganda tool which children would brought to see.

Belchite was a name familiar to our family for many years as the place where our uncle Sidney Shosteck died. We made up our stories based on the few scraps left to us; a newspaper article, a few pages of diary, a letter. We made assumptions which we had to discard: Sidney buried in the olive press; leaving roses at the town fountain. We imagined a scenario where Sidney walked through the town gate, following a tank, and was shot from the church tower.

Now we learned that the Lincoln Battalion approached the fascist holdout in the church from the opposite side of town. We saw the building used first as a hospital, then as  the Falangist headquarters. This was where a fascist prisoner was leading a tank, followed by Sidney, when he was shot in the head from a high vantage point. It was clear that this must have been either the clock tower, or one of the buildings near it.

One of the archaeology team pointed out the house from which his family had been removed to the new Belchite, in the 1960's. Old Belchite had been a settlement from Roman times, where Jews, Muslims and Christians lived together . It is so ironic that Franco was unable to succeed without involving the very people he wanted to remove from Spain.

As we went out the gate we met an Aragon fiesta party with women in traditional dress. It seemed an odd place to celebrate. A man asked us, "where are you from?"
-"Scotland, Ireland, England and Wales.".
He said emphatically, "NO, United Kingdom!"
Clearly he was strongly against the devolved powers and regional identity which threatened  Madrid's centralized control.  We have had many discussions amongst ourselves about this, as Scotland's referendum about independence will be held this Thursday.


 Interesting layers of graffiti - fascist, Anarchist, for Aragonese independence-on the walls  of the abandoned city showed the politics of the Civil War was still a burning issue.

The programme of  talks, and the various perspectives of the volunteeers  coming from diverse cultures and political angles, have provoked many stimulating ideas. Francisco Fernandez considered the effect of  war on contemporary society; the mass graves created not by war, but repression; counting some victims, and not others. The process of grieving was allowed f Nationalists but not Republicans, and  even today is a contentious issue. The poignant photo of Maria throwing flowers from  the side of the highway built over where her father died showed the continuing pain of loss.

General Franco declared he was "building a new Spain on the bodies of the fallen". He meant, only the winning side.  The fear created by decades of oppression is still felt over the issue of exhumations of Republican dead, which are not officially recognised. The bereaved often had to create rituals when these mass graves from the Civil War and after, were finally uncovered.  Only in the past decade could this digging for historical truth have occured.