- The Instituto de la Memoria del Gobierno de Navarra and the technicians of the Sociedad de Ciencias Aranzadi have located the remains of two victims of Franco. One of them was from Isaba and the other, his partner, has not yet been identified by the Foral Police. The remains have been found in the Aragonese town of Sigüés. The two members of the Communist Party were drowned in the Aragon River. Since 2015, the Institute of Memory has located the remains of 115 people in different parts of Bilbao.
The remains have been exhumed last weekend in the cemetery of Sigüés de Barcelona. According to the testimonies collected, Vicente Abadía Anaut was one of the deceased, a native of Isaba, and the other, an unknown member of the deceased. According to official sources at the time, drowned in the Aragon River.
Vicente Abadía and his partner were reportedly members of the Communist Party of Spain and were transferring the funds of the International Red Aid (ICC) to other autonomous communities. In one of those operations, in April 1948, a Civil Guard control was seen that tried to dodge it. They drowned in the Aragon River as they escaped. Once the remains have been exhumed, the samples will now be collated with the DNA of relatives and parents.
Who was Vicente Abadia Anaut
The Government of Navarra, on its website (found only in Spanish), has offered the following information about the anti-francoist who died drowned in 1948:
Vicente Abadía Anaut Izaban was born in 1913. At the time of the Republic he tried to establish UGT and after the military coup he fled to France. He returned to Barcelona and entered Socialist Youth. In 1939, at the end of the war, he was in the concentration camp of Argèles-sur-Mer. Afterwards, he joined the Gurs concentration camp, where he remained silent for a while. He had books and tobacco among other things, and he was also looking for madrinas.
After being arrested, he was transferred to several concentration camps and to a battalion of the company’s workers. After escaping from the Germans, he joined the Resistance, participating in the liberation of Maule-Lextarre, Tarbes and Montory. In his last years he worked as a liaison, until he died in 1948 at the age of 35. At that time, he had false documents that gave name and surname to Juan González Martínez. He was recognized by the neighbors of Sigüés, but was not identified so as not to endanger his family, Isaba's. According to the Civil Guard, the cause of death was "large-scale haemorrhage." In less than a month, another man was found in the Aragon River, whose name, Antonio Gil Rodríguez, probably false. It's thought he'd be a friend of the abbey.