“This is the place of the tragedy: in front of the sea, under the sky, on earth. This is the port of Alicante, on March 30, 1939. Tragedies always happen in a certain place, on a precise date, at a time that cannot be delayed”. In this illustrative and painful way, Max Aub describes in his work El Campo de los Almendros, what happened in the Port of Alicante when thousands of republicans awaited the arrival of ships to escape from a lost war that would condemn them to concentration camps or , in the best of cases, to a bloody dictatorship.
It is no coincidence that, to commemorate what happened in the Port of Alicante and at a certain distance from the statue of the captain of the Stanbrook, the last of the ships that sailed from the city loaded with exhausted Republicans, the future Valencian Institute of the Democratic Memory, Human Rights and Freedoms.
A body created by virtue of article 44 of Law 14/2017, of November 10, of the Generalitat, of democratic memory and for the coexistence of the Valencian Community, but which has not been until the end of the second botanical legislature when they have laid the foundations (read budgets) to start it up.
Perhaps, there was some fear that a change of government -there are elections to the Generalitat next spring- could reverse the commitment to this body and the recovery of historical memory. "We do nothing but comply with the law," they explain in the Ministry of Participation, Transparency, Cooperation and Democratic Quality, in which they are aware that one of the first demands that the extreme right can make to support a possible PP government would be the closure of this center. However, it would not be the first regulation to be repealed with a political change. Of course, it may be that with the money already invested, it will cost more for the PP to take that step.
In the Budgets of the Generalitat Valenciana for the year 2023, more than 900,000 euros will be allocated for the first time to start up the Institute, to which another 600,000 euros from the Ministry of Transport will have to be added for the rehabilitation of the building. As reflected in the accounts, part of the investment of the Generalitat Valenciana (382,000 euros) would be for the hiring of official personnel, so that, they explain in the department that Rosa Pérez Garijo directs, the number of resources for meet the two basic objectives of this institute. "Adopt as many multidisciplinary measures as possible to promote the recovery of the Valencian democratic memory and promote homage and recognition of the victims of the Civil War and the dictatorship."
The rest of the budget would be to rehabilitate the building and adapt it (600,000 from the Government and 376,000 from the Conselleria) and to buy furniture and fixtures (40,000). And it is that one of the actions that they want to carry out in this emblematic place that the Port Authority of Alicante makes available to the Generalitat for a period of 20 years, extendable for 5 more years, is the construction of an exhibition hall.
An exhibition space of a cultural and didactic nature for the promotion and dissemination of knowledge and dissemination of democratic memory, as well as a documentation center for holding congresses, conferences and other scientific and informative meetings as a specific measure of recognition and reparation to the victims.
Pérez Garijo explains that the Institute is going to carry out, with more means and personnel, the work that the Conselleria was already carrying out, developing the Law of Historical Memory of the Botànic. Some initiatives as important as the DNA bank, which allows classifying and helping to identify the disappeared and those buried in mass graves, but also to investigate what happened to the stolen babies.
In fact, Transparency sources explain that having genetic data stored would allow new identifications in the future, if techniques advance. Along these lines, they recall that the new scientific procedures have already allowed the Department, in collaboration with the Fisabio Foundation and the University of Valencia, to identify eight victims of the Civil War and the Franco regime in grave 112 of the Paterna cemetery.
Thus, after years of delay, the Valencian Institute of Historical Memory will become a reality. The Minister of Transparency says that it has not been easy to find a place. She, since she visited it more than two years ago, wanted the symbolic old Foreign Health building of the Port of Alicante, but the Ministry of Education and the College of Engineers also wanted it. Other alternatives were sought, such as the old Benalúa prison, where the Orihuela poet Miguel Hernández died on March 28, 1942. Finally, she opted for the Port building, at the site of the tragedy described by Max Aub.
