HISTORICAL MEMORY
Bildu politicians call for repatriation of Civil War dead
‘Abertzale’ authorities in Gipuzkoa and San Sebastián want to exhume more than 100 Basque soldiers from fight against Franco
The Bildu-controlled Gipuzkoa provincial council and San Sebastián City Hall have called for more than 100 Basque combatants from the Civil War buried in Asturias in 1937 to be exhumed and returned to the region.
The fallen soldiers were gudaris -- members of the Basque government's army that fought on the Republican side in the 1936-39 conflict. The abertzale nationalist Bildu authorities signed an agreement to allocate 45,000 euros to the project and have contacted the Asturian government.
San Sebastián Mayor Juan Karlos Izagirre said that the majority of the soldiers were from Gipuzkoa and had served in the Eusko Indarra battalion, "dreaming of the Basque Country's freedom."
