The disbanded, the greatest tragedy of the Civil War, contained politically
DAVID Bollero
The slaughter of the road from Málaga to Almería was forgotten for being an embarrassment to both Franco and for the Republic
The slaughter of the wagon from Malaga to Almeria, known as the "disbanded" is the most overlooked of the Spanish Civil War, despite being the worst massacre lived during the war. "The dead are dead, but while the bombing of Guernica, with 250, is internationally known, the road to Almería, with 5,000 killed, always has been hidden because it was an embarrassment to everyone," says the historian Miguel Alba .
If Guernica fascist bombs fell on 5,000 Basques in disbands over 150,000 Malaga, mostly women and children, they had to flee the city on foot, barefoot even while being bombarded from the air by German and Italian aircraft and from the sea by national vessels. Recount the chronicles of the time, recalls historian Lourdes Pelaez, "how Franco boats quietly accompanied in parallel and on the right flank the flight of the population, leaving behind Malaga by the only road carved into the rock above sea, while bombing ".
A 5,000 dead of that flight would have to add many more in Malaga once fell on February 8 at the hands of the rebels. "The information in newspapers of the time as El Centinela described as Malaga and was not a city, it was a butcher, with women jumping out the window, the smell of burning flesh or the Fascists shooting at the streets indiscriminately defenseless people," says Peláez .
Despite this undeniable tragedy, even now holds 79 years of events, he remains the most overlooked in the history of Spain, especially north Despeñaperros. Alba provides the answer to this historical amnesia: "The politically disbanded been locked because politics always wants to bring the history of hand. It has not been talked about this massacre because he was an embarrassment to everyone, both the fascists, who were the executors, to the Republic. "
Photography 'disbands' Hazen Sise, assistant to Dr. Bethune, provided by Jesus Majada and the Andalusian Center of Photography.
