"In one line, the judge has rejected the complaint about Franco's slaves without analyzing whether the facts reported can be classified as war crimes or crimes against humanity," says the Bideak Report. This association and the relatives of 13 Republicans imprisoned in Salazar placed the complaint and were supported by the Navarros unions UGT, CCOO, ELA, LAB, CGT, ESK, EHNE, Steilas and Solidari, as well as by several municipalities throughout the Basque Country. "The work of the slaves who were building the road between Igari and Vidángoz was in contravention of points 3 and 4 of the 1949 Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War," the complaining members explain, "Furthermore, the judge has ignored what the Democratic Memory Act recently approved by the State says."
In the construction of the road between Igari and Bidankoz, 2,000 wars were imprisoned as slaves between 1939 and 1941. There lived a borderline situation: the cold, hunger, disease and abuse of Francoist soldiers. Many did not survive.
