{"id":9400,"date":"2018-12-03T11:57:59","date_gmt":"2018-12-03T11:57:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/lugar\/federico-garcia-lorca-park-in-alfacar\/"},"modified":"2022-01-27T10:56:11","modified_gmt":"2022-01-27T10:56:11","slug":"federico-garcia-lorca-park-in-alfacar","status":"publish","type":"lugar","link":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/en\/lugar\/federico-garcia-lorca-park-in-alfacar\/","title":{"rendered":"Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca Park in Alfacar"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca Park in Alfacar (Granada) was inaugurated in 1986 by the Diputaci\u00f3n de Granada to pay tribute to the poet in the place where he was killed along with his three companions of execution (the banderilleros Francisco Galad\u00ed<\/a> and Joaqu\u00edn Arcoyas<\/a>, and the teacher from Pulianas Di\u00f3scoro Galindo<\/a>) and to remember all the people shot in a wide strip of land from Alfacar to V\u00edznar<\/a> now marked as a place of Historical Memory.<\/p>\n

The park is located in the upper part of the village, next to the Fuente de Aynadamar or the Fountain of Tears <\/a>. With the acquisition of the land, the Diputaci\u00f3n de Granada also wanted to avoid real estate speculation and future building in an area populated by villas.<\/p>\n

The first excavations to locate Lorca and his fellow executioners carried out in 2009 with the backing of the Regional Government of Andalusia were discouraging. No human remains or signs of burials were found around the olive tree.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At the entrance of the park, in the place where the bodies were presumed to be, next to an old olive tree turned into a symbol of repression, a stone monolith was placed with the following legend: “To the memory of Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca and all the victims of the Civil War”. Every year, around August 19, Lorca’s assassination is commemorated with an open-air ceremony in which personalities such as Rafael Alberti, Francisco Rabal, Gabriel Celaya and Lola Gaos have participated since 1986.<\/p>\n

\"Monolith<\/a>
Monolith next to the olive tree of the Garc\u00eda Lorca Park in Alfacar.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In order to delimit the perimeter and build the park at the burial site, a commission of experts was created in 1979 to determine the exact location of the grave. The commission, despite harboring “reasonable doubts, opted for the area where the olive tree identified by Agust\u00edn Pen\u00f3n<\/a> and Ian Gibson is located.<\/p>\n

Its members were chosen from among researchers and witnesses who had previously expressed their opinion in books or newspapers. It was formed by nine people, the Hispanist Ian Gibson, author of The Nationalist Repression of Granada in 1936 and the Death of Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca<\/em> (1971), published in Ruedo Ib\u00e9rico; the researcher Jos\u00e9 Luis Vila-San-Juan, author of the study Garc\u00eda Lorca Assasinated: the Whole Truth<\/em> (1975); journalists Eduardo Castro and Antonio Ramos Espejo; \u00c1ngeles Gonz\u00e1lez S\u00e1enz and Fernando Molina, widow and son of journalist Eduardo Molina Fajardo, author of The Last Days of Garc\u00eda Lorca<\/em> (1983); the civil servant Jos\u00e9 Rold\u00e1n Cobos, who between August 19 and 20, 1936 had been assigned to the V\u00edznar sector; Jos\u00e9 Contreras Hita, foreman of the reforestation of the area, and Mar\u00eda Luisa Illescas, a former inhabitant of V\u00edznar.<\/p>\n

The members of the commission defended different alternatives, although the one that obtained more support was the one proposed in all its publications by Ian Gibson, which coincided with that of the hispanist Agust\u00edn Pen\u00f3n, who between 1955 and 1956 investigated in Granada the circumstances of the poet’s death.<\/p>\n

Mar\u00eda Luisa Illescas also supported this thesis and provided a photo of the place, which she knew thanks to the testimonies of six members of the Black Squads (the groups of assassins under the command of the commander Jos\u00e9 Vald\u00e9s<\/a>, civil governor of Granada at the beginning of the uprising) who in 1936 had stayed at the home of an uncle of hers in V\u00edznar.<\/p>\n

The thesis of the olive grove had been suggested by other people in the years immediately after the shooting, such as the poet Joaqu\u00edn Romero Murube<\/a>, who in 1937 published in the Seville of Queipo de Llano, a book of poems with the following dedication: “To you, in V\u00edznar [sic], near Fuente Grande, already made earth and rumor of eternal and hidden water!”. Joaqu\u00edn Romero was in V\u00edznar in 1936 and when he appeared he found informants who pointed out the surroundings of the Aynadamar fountain.<\/p>\n

After his execution, Lorca was buried “very deep in the ground, in a ravine located about two kilometers to the right of the said Fuente Grande, in a place that is very difficult to locate”.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The first excavations to locate Lorca and his fellow executioners carried out between November and December 2009 with the backing of the Regional Government of Andalusia were discouraging. No human remains or signs of burials were found around the olive tree, given the thin layer of earth covering the bedrock. Only modern soft drink cans thrown by hikers. However, next to the olive tree, transformed into a symbol of repression, the tributes begun in 1986 continue to be held annually.<\/p>\n

The information has not ceased. In 2015, it was released in an official report of the Superior Police Headquarters of Granada, dated in 1965, that Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca “was taken from the Gobierno Civil<\/a> by forces dependent on it and driven in a car to the term of V\u00edznar (Granada) and in the vicinity of the place known as Fuente Grande, together with another detainee whose personal circumstances are unknown, was passed by arms after having confessed”. After his execution, he was buried “in that place, very close to the ground, in a ravine located about two kilometers to the right of the said Fuente Grande, in a place that is very difficult to locate”. Franco’s police justified the execution of the poet for being a Freemason, “for practicing homosexuality”, for his socialist support and “for his links to Fernando de los R\u00edos, as well as for his close relations with other important people of the same political party”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":9403,"template":"","inters_del_lugar":[119],"ruta":[122],"class_list":["post-9400","lugar","type-lugar","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","inters_del_lugar-indispensable","ruta-route-alfacar-viznar"],"trid":"194","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/lugar\/9400"}],"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\/9403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"inters_del_lugar","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/inters_del_lugar?post=9400"},{"taxonomy":"ruta","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ruta?post=9400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}