- Marisol Garmendia confirms the rating of the emblematic border enclave during the commemoration of the Day of Spanish Republican Exile
“The Avenida de Irun Bridge will be considered a place of memory.” This has been pointed out by the Government delegate in the Basque Country, Marisol Garmendia, during the commemoration of the Day of Republican Exile at the emblematic border crossing. A tribute in which the mayor of Irun, Cristina Laborda, has also intervened. This enclave will be confirmed in the coming months as a Place of Memory to join a list of which for now Gernika-Lumo is part in the Basque Country. In study there are other enclaves such as the church of San Francisco de Asís de Vitoria where the future Memorial 3 de Marzo will be housed, and the square of Unzaga and the Consistorial House of Eibar (where the Second Republic was proclaimed). The declaration is one of the tools included in the law of Democratic Memory to point out those spaces of special historical relevance linked to the struggle for freedoms with a “commemorative, homage, didactic and reparative” function.
“Last year, the City of Irun asked the Government of Spain to declare the bridge as a Place of Memory. And today I can announce that this is indeed how it will be, although for the official announcement there are still some months, the time necessary to finish all the administrative procedures. But the decision has already been taken by the Spanish Government,” announced Marisol Garmendia at the event organized by the Government Delegation in the Basque Country and the City of Irun. Among the authorities that have attended the event are the Deputy Minister of Human Rights, Memory and Cooperation of the Basque Government, José Antonio Rodríguez Ranz; Ararteko Manuel
Lezertua; the director of the Gogora Institute, Aintzane Ezenarro; the lieutenant of deputy and deputy of Sustainability of Gipuzkoa, José Ignacio Asensio, and the deputy of Mobility, Tourism and Planning of the Territory of Gipuzkoa, Azahara Domínguez, as well as representatives of the memorialist associations.
Marisol Garmendia recalled that the tribute to the victims of the Spanish Republican exile takes place on the Avenida Bridge because “on September 4, 1936, thousands of Iraqis crossed with their belongings this bridge to France to escape the Civil War and then the Franco dictatorship. In this same step on the Bidasoa River, the Gestapo handed over to the Francoist authorities Lluís Companys, president of the Generalitat of Catalonia, who was subsequently shot.”
For her part, the mayor of Irun, Cristina Laborda, has also wanted to show her empathy with those exiles. “Today is a day to remember and above all, to reclaim the struggle of so many people who had to flee to defend values such as freedom and democracy. We are in a very special place and very suitable precisely to make visible the strength of the union. Hundreds of people fled across this bridge, creating a physical and symbolic separation.”
The Avenida Bridge has changed over the years its raison d'être and today it constitutes an element of union, as Laborda stressed. “This Avenida Bridge is a special place, full of history and stories. But it has ceased to be an element of separation and through it gives us the opportunity to connect and unite our territory, and of course, the people.”
The government delegate, the mayor of Irun and the other authorities have made a floral offering on the commemorative plaque of the victims of the exile before visiting the interpretation center that is located in the immediate vicinity.
“Exile is always a terrible thing,” said Marisol Garmendia during her speech. “While we are here, many people are at this moment forcibly abandoning their homeland to go elsewhere fleeing the
Famines, wars and violence. And let’s remember that this was, at some point, what happened to the Spaniards who were persecuted and harassed by the Dictatorship and the Civil War, the blackest page in our history”, he recalled.
Lessons from the past
The government delegate has invited the attendees to draw lessons from the past to build a more supportive present and future. “Many of the exiles were welcomed with affection and solidarity by the countries to which they had to emigrate. Others, however, suffered the contempt and lack of understanding of those who saw them with the eyes of racism, as mere intruders who were going to snatch work and rights from them. That is why it is so important to remember the importance of helping the exiles. And more so now that we are living in times in which xenophobia is reborn and outbreaks of insolidarity arise, especially from the right and the extreme right. The memory of those exiled must strengthen in us the empathy with those most in need,” he said.
Garmendia has defended the need to clarify the past to build the future. The delegate of the Government has vindicated the policy developed in this regard by the Spanish Government. “The government presided over by Pedro Sánchez wants to recover the memory of the Republican exile for Spain. And proof of this is the Democratic Memory Law, the demonstration that the State pays homage to exile and does everything possible to make it known among the Spanish with a restorative, inclusive and plural vision. Harmony deserves to be based on memory and not on oblivion.”
This strategy, that of oblivion, has deserved the censorship of Marisol Garmendia by recalling the policies applied by the right and the extreme right. “We are now seeing some communities governed by the Partido Popular and by Vox invent a ‘law of Concordia’ based on a mystifying vision of the history of Spain in the period from 1931 to 1978. In reality, it is an attempt to distort the policies of democratic memory currently in force, at the same time as blurring the Republic, which with all its defects and errors is the most important democratic experience that we can contemplate when looking at our past. Even the UN has revolted against these ‘laws of concord’ and warns of negationism,” he criticized.
For the government delegate, the line to follow is another very different one. “At this time in history we have the opportunity and the responsibility to work to confront the intolerant and commit to the Never Again,” he concluded.