Valley of the Fallen in Madrid

The Valley of the Fallen in Madrid was built in the 1940s by order of dictator Francisco Franco and, was in part, built by forced labour from political prisoners. Its aim was to be a mausoleum for victims of the Civil War from the Francoist side but at the end it was decided it would turn into a mausoleum for all the fallen of the Civil War, regardless of the side they fought for. However, even though there are thousands of victims buried in the mausoleum, only two had markers: Francisco Franco, exhumed in 2019, and José Antonio Primo de Rivera’s, founder of the fascist party Falange. This case study explores the contestations surrounding the Valley of the Fallen Francoist legacy in modern Spain.