Opening up Catalonia’s mass graves

Joan Solé was 38 years old when he was fatally wounded at the battle
of Vic as the Republican forces withdrew on February 1 and 2 1939 in
the dying days of the Spanish Civil War. Solé and three other soldiers
from the area of Gavà were buried were they fell in a common grave
already occupied by 22 corpses near the masia of Rovira de Gurb in
Osona. Some days later, Solé's family applied to the bishop of Vic for
a Christian burial for Joan in his home town. The response was as
blunt as it was insensitive: "Reds cannot be buried in a cemetery."
(Full story in printed edition).