Episode 6: A Hole in the Silence

Episode 6: A Hole in the Silence

During the Spanish Civil War and Franco's dictatorship, tens of thousands of people were forcibly disappeared. For decades, few people knew this — and no one talked about it. Then, one man started to dig into his past to find his missing grandfather. What he discovered allowed him to break his own silence, and the silence of an entire country.

Spain has one of the highest number of forced disappearances in the world, second only to Cambodia. During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and General Francisco Franco's dictatorship, fascist troops killed tens of thousands of people and threw them into mass graves. For decades, few people knew this — and no one in Spain talked about it. But in the year 2000, a man in the middle of an identity crisis began digging into his family's past, searching for a grandfather who had gone missing in the war. What Emilio Silva discovered not only changed his own life - it inspired a social movement to recover Memoria Histórica, or historical memory, throughout Spain. In episode 6, audio producer and writer Isabel Cadenas Cañón (De eso no se habla) reveals the cultural transformation of a country through the personal transformation of one man. Tell us what you think of Last Seen! Please fill out our short survey.