{"id":9373,"date":"2021-08-31T09:46:50","date_gmt":"2021-08-31T09:46:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/lugar\/viznar-ravine\/"},"modified":"2021-10-04T07:40:36","modified_gmt":"2021-10-04T07:40:36","slug":"viznar-ravine","status":"publish","type":"lugar","link":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/en\/lugar\/viznar-ravine\/","title":{"rendered":"Barranco de V\u00edznar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Barranco de V\u00edznar (V\u00edznar Ravine) is a sloping edge of about 10,000 square meters that descends on a sharp and shady curve of the road between Alfacar<\/a> and V\u00edznar, declared a Place of Memory. It is an area covered by thick pine forests of repopulation, which allowed to cover up the graves after the mass executions committed from July 1936 by platoons formed by assault guards and volunteers of the Black Squads.<\/p>\n

The ravine is full of mass graves of all sizes of which five have been identified. Thousands of people were buried there after a routine unloading<\/strong> for their sympathies with the Republic as part of the ferocious repression that followed the uprising.<\/p>\n

The first murders in the area were committed in Puerto Lobo; then on the edge of the road leading to Alfacar and from September 1936 on the paths of the Ravine.<\/p>\n

The Barranco de V\u00edznar, along with the walls of the cemetery of Granada, was the place where more left-wing sympathizers were shot dead.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The natural wells, actually pits dug by runoff pouring from the Natural Park of Hu\u00e9tor, follow one another practically from the edge of the road and continue, as one ascends, at least 500 meters. It is an immense civil cemetery.<\/p>\n

The difficulty in accessing the burial area encouraged the City Council of V\u00edznar to open a paved dirt path that, after a gentle detour, leads to the main grave around which there is a stone gallery that the heirs of those shot and historical memory associations have filled with small metal plaques with the name and circumstances of those killed.<\/p>\n

Among the dead there is the rector of the University of Granada, Salvador Vila<\/a>, who, after winning the rectorship in April 1936 over his academic rival, Antonio Mar\u00edn Ocete, was deposed by the military and replaced by his competitor in the elections. Vila, a 32-year-old Arabist, was arrested in Salamanca, the city where he was surprised by the uprising, brought to Granada and shot on October 22, 1936. His wife, Gerda Leimd\u00f6rfer<\/a>, daughter of the editor-in-chief of Berlin’s leading Jewish newspaper, the Berliner Zeitung am Mittag<\/em>, was spared thanks to the mediation of Manuel de Falla<\/a> who obtained a pardon in exchange for her conversion to Catholicism.<\/p>\n

In the main grave there is a simple stone monolith with the legend \u201cAll were Lorca. 18-08-2002″. The grave is usually filled with flowers throughout the year and with messages that reproduce letters or poems. On August 19, it hosts a poetry evening, which began to be held clandestinely during the last years of the dictatorship, which begins at midnight and lasts until the early hours of the morning. It was the first open-air commemoration of Lorca’s assassination and of the thousands of reprisals after Franco’s victory.<\/p>\n

\"Monolith<\/a>
Monolith in memory of the reprisals in the Barranco de V\u00edznar.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Ravine, along with the walls of the cemetery of Granada, was the place where more left-wing sympathizers were shot. The shootings in V\u00edznar reached Puerto Lobo, where there is evidence of the existence of several graves, although archaeologists have not found human remains in them.<\/p>\n

The repression, according to historians, followed a premeditated plan of systematic elimination of the Republican political and union forces. After the first uncontrolled assassinations in August 1936, the repression was organized and focused on the leaders and participants in the strikes during the Republican period. The executions in V\u00edznar did not end with the war and continued years later.<\/strong><\/p>\n

August 19 hosts a poetry evening, which began to be held clandestinely during the last years of the dictatorship, which begins at midnight and lasts until the early hours of the morning.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Image<\/a>
Image of the archaeological surveys carried out in the mass graves of the Barranco de V\u00edznar in 2013.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On June 28, 2013, the City Council of V\u00edznar and the General Directorate of Democratic Memory began a series of archaeological surveys to locate, mark and dignify the common burials of the Ravine. A total of eleven possible graves were dug up. The archaeologists found ammunition and human remains in five of them. The findings, however, were not publicly quantified. The Board filed a complaint for crimes against humanity so that the judge would take notice and, if he deemed it appropriate, investigate what it called “a sample of violence generated by a public power in a systematic way”.<\/p>\n

Subsequently, in 2014, the search for graves was extended to another 40,000 square meters in the area of Puerto Lobo where archaeologists found no human remains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":9378,"template":"","inters_del_lugar":[119],"ruta":[122],"class_list":["post-9373","lugar","type-lugar","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","inters_del_lugar-indispensable","ruta-route-alfacar-viznar"],"trid":"193","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/lugar\/9373"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/lugar"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/lugar"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"inters_del_lugar","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/inters_del_lugar?post=9373"},{"taxonomy":"ruta","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ruta?post=9373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}