Vice president Ollo hands over the remains of an anarchist victim of repression during the Civil War to his family
The Second Vice President and Minister of Memory and Coexistence, External Action and Basque, Ana Ollo, presided this morning over the ceremony handing over the remains of Ignacio Francisco Caneda Deza to his relatives. He was a young anarchist born in the United States who was executed after a failed escape attempt from the Fort of San Cristóbal during the Civil War, where he had been imprisoned since June 1936 due to his political activism in the preceding years.
The ceremony took place in the square of the Old Town of Berriozar, as his body was buried in the local cemetery along with those of another twenty fellow prisoners, after they were executed on 1 November 1936 at the Fort of San Cristóbal. In March 2022, based on a report submitted by the association Txinparta–Fuerte de San Cristóbal to the Government of Navarra’s Exhumation Plan, the Navarra Institute of Memory, together with the technical team of the Aranzadi Science Society, carried out the exhumation of this grave.
The event was attended by members of the Parliament of Navarra, local authorities from the Berriozar City Council, representatives of memorialist associations, technical teams from the Aranzadi Science Society and the Nasertic laboratory, as well as relatives of the victim.
Ignacio Francisco Caneda Deza was a resident of O Grove (Pontevedra), where his family came from. However, contrary to what had been believed, he was not born there. His mother, Rosa Deza, emigrated to the United States in 1917, and he was born the following year in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He was still a teenager when he returned to Galicia, where he worked as a sailor and engaged with anarchist circles. He was sentenced on 11 July 1934 by the Pontevedra court to 4 years, 7 months and 1 day in prison. He entered the Fort of San Cristóbal on 28 June 1936, at 18 years old, where he remained imprisoned until his death in November of that year. His family did not learn of his whereabouts until last year, when the Galician press reported the identification of another fellow prisoner exhumed in Berriozar, Tomás Mardones, and published the list of other prisoners from that grave whose relatives had not been located.
“We continue, and will continue, searching,” said Ollo
After the initial greeting by the mayor of Berriozar, Iker Mariezkurrena, one of Ignacio Francisco’s grandnieces, Rosa González, spoke to thank all the individuals and institutions that made the identification of her uncle’s remains possible. “It was our relatives and friends in O Grove who shared with us the links to the Galician press calling for relatives of Ignacio Francisco Caneda Deza to contact the Navarra Institute of Memory.”
She also highlighted that, due to Ignacio Francisco’s nationality, the American embassy intervened—although unsuccessfully—in an attempt to secure his release. She went on to explain that her great-grandfather died “carrying with him the deepest pain that a father can experience: knowing that his son had died, yet never knowing where his remains lay.” “Now,” González concluded, “Ignacio Francisco will be buried in the same grave as his father and two of his siblings in O Grove, where he will finally rest in the peace he so deserved and which was denied to him for decades.”
Vice President Ana Ollo then handed the family the remains and the exhumation and identification reports. She emphasised the Government of Navarra’s firm commitment to the Exhumation Plan, despite the difficulties in locating new graves, and the need to strengthen democratic coexistence without forgetting the memory of the brutal violence unleashed after the 1936 coup d’état.
“In these times, when memory policies are receding in many places, I want to reaffirm the Government of Navarra’s commitment to the victims of the violence that shook our land after the 1936 military coup,” she stated. “A commitment that remains intact after ten years of public memory policies. We continue—and will continue—searching, investigating, carrying out surveys, identifying for as long as there is even the remotest possibility. You can be sure of that. And we do so with conviction and with pride, even as the drums of war—from denialism, and even from the vindication of barbarism—sound ever closer; a barbarism that continues to shake our world today, showing us that we need critical memory for the past, but also for the present and the future.”
Exhumation and Identification Plan of the Institute of Memory
Since 2015, the year the Government of Navarra’s Exhumation Plan came into force, 161 remains have been recovered in 36 exhumations, along with another 123 surveys that did not result in exhumation. Work continues, and in recent months remains have been located and exhumed in Salinas de Oro, Genevilla and Muniáin de Guesálaz.
For the identification of the remains, the work of Nasertic with the Public DNA Bank and that of the Aranzadi Science Society is essential, along with local authorities, memorialist groups and families. The bank, which has 402 open cases, has so far enabled 44 identifications. Indeed, Navarra has offered its collaboration through the State and through bilateral agreements using this bank and other memory-related instruments to support further identifications.
In the case of Berriozar—as in others—identifications progress slowly, as there are very few genetic samples from relatives of these victims, due to their geographical dispersion. The Navarra Institute of Memory issues a renewed call for collaboration, both to locate possible graves and burial sites and to find relatives of escapees and repressed individuals whose genetic samples could make new identifications possible.
Specifically, no relatives have been located for the following prisoners exhumed in Berriozar:
• Joaquín Abellán Cerezo, from Jumilla (Murcia), Aged 22
• José Pedro Cantero Tejada, from Badolatosa (Sevilla), Aged 29
• Juan Cruz Villar, from Santander (Cantabria), Aged 19
• Jacinto Curto Pérez, from San Juan de Torres (León), Aged 27
• Manuel Hidalgo González, from Córdoba, Aged 20
• Manuel González Amorós, from Torrevieja (Alicante), Aged 28
• Félix Manzanares Ortiz, from Horcajo de Santiago (Cuenca), Aged 27
• Antonio Marmaneu Estupiña, from Castelló de la Plana, Aged 43
• Hermenegildo Marquina García, from Barakaldo (Bizkaia), Aged 25
• Inocencio Martín Arranz, from Santa Cruz de la Salceda (Burgos), Aged 44
• Juan Dionisio Ortiz Sanz, from Monehuela (Jaén), Aged 27
• Epifanio Osoro Icobalceta, from Durango (Bizkaia), Aged 22
• Bernabé Rodríguez Presa, from León, Aged 21
• Ángel Santamaría Legaria, from Moreda (Araba / Álava), Aged 35
• Antonio Valdivielso Secada, from Valienzo (Cantabria), Aged 25
Anyone who may have information regarding these individuals, knows the location of graves or burial sites, or wishes to share testimony, may contact the Navarra Institute of Memory at inm@navarra.es.
Source: navarra.es
