Sagunto 2026 tribute to Civil War and Franco victims: floral offering and a Machado poem
Sagunto paid tribute on 30 October to the victims of the Civil War and Francoism, a day before the official date. The floral offering brought together councillors, relatives of those persecuted and memory associations.
Sagunto City Council held its annual remembrance ceremony for the victims of the Civil War and Franco-era repression on Friday 30 October 2026, convened by the Department of Historical and Democratic Memory. It took place a day before the official date, Saturday 31 October, which Spain dedicates to those who suffered the military coup, the war and the dictatorship. The ceremony was held in front of the monument built in the city in memory of those victims.
The councillors of the municipal Corporation laid a floral offering together at the foot of the monument. They were joined by relatives of people persecuted by the regime and by representatives of memory associations. A string duo provided the music, and a poem by Antonio Machado dedicated to Federico García Lorca, El crimen fue en Granada, was recited.
Mayor Darío Moreno argued that no institutional initiative is enough to make up for what happened, because it is built on an irreversible fact: thousands of lives were lost or cut short and traumatised, and remained invisible; nothing will ever be known about many of them. Moreno also pointed to a paradox of the present: citizens now have more information than ever and, at the same time, hoaxes spread and even what documents, analyses and historical research prove is called into question. In his view, despite the sustained effort of associations, families and civil society, there are still people with an interest in poisoning history and, with it, today's society.
The councillor for Historical and Democratic Memory, Roberto Rovira, stressed the role of those who have kept that memory alive. He recalled that Sagunto suffered bombings and repression, and that those wounds are part of local history. Many families kept for years a photograph, a letter or an object they could barely show, and thanks to that determination and the work of the associations those stories have come to light. Rovira set out three tasks for institutions: to listen to those testimonies, preserve them and pass them on to younger generations. He added that administrations must make it easier for the truth to be known, recognise the victims and accompany those who are still looking for answers about their relatives. He concluded that today's freedoms and democracy cost enormous suffering.
This year's tribute falls on the eve of two anniversaries: the approval of the Spanish Constitution in 1978 in the plenary sessions of the Congress and the Senate, and the Historical Memory Law of 2007. The day of remembrance itself is more recent. Law 20/2022 of 19 October on Democratic Memory declared, in its article 7, 31 October of each year a day of remembrance and tribute to all victims of the military coup, the war and the dictatorship. That law was published in the BOE (Spain's official state gazette) number 252 on 20 October 2022, came into force the following day and repealed Law 52/2007 of 26 December on Historical Memory; the 2007 law recalled at the ceremony is therefore one that has since been repealed.
The ceremonies of recent years show a trajectory. According to Valencia Plaza on 21 November 2022, the City Council then closed the first Historical and Democratic Memory Days, under the motto Resistir es vencer, by giving new meaning to a Francoist monolith erected in 1940 and dedicated to the fallen. After a motion approved in plenary session, the monument came to honour the victims from 1936 to 1975, and Moreno said at the time that it remembers all those who lost their lives for rights and freedoms. In May 2022, as reported by elperiodic.com, the council and the Plataforma 14 de Abril of Puçol paid tribute to 27 residents shot on 5 May 1939 at the municipal cemetery of Sagunto after a summary trial: 12 from Puçol, 8 from Sagunto and 7 from El Puig. In the 2024 edition of the 31 October tribute, also according to elperiodic.com, the department organised a floral offering at the monument in the Ingruinsa gardens.
According to Sagunto City Council, with additional data from the BOE, Valencia Plaza and elperiodic.com.