Lorca Resting in Peace?
Lorca was brought here on August 18 or 19, 1936, a month after the rightwing military rebellion that marked the opening of the Spanish civil war. His assassins were members of one of future dictator General Franco’s death squads, ” la escuadra negra ” or “black squadron”, who were systematically wiping out suspected leftwingers. The poet was just one of hundreds, if not thousands, dragged from their homes or prison cells and taken to the hills and ravines at the foot of the Sierra de Alfacar to be summarily, and anonymously, executed. Unlike the 2,102 people shot against the walls of Granada’s cemetery, no record was kept of those brought here.
The question of Federico Garcia Lorca’s final resting place may finally be settled once and for all, if the families of the two men buried alongside him in Alfacar, near Granada, win their case to have the bodies exhumed. Lorca’s descendants, however, do not wish to have the famed playwright exhumed. A judge will decide.