The book on repression in Améscoa from 1936 will include an explicit section: “Slaughterhouse of Urbasa”. The shattering of the mountains, which occupies a special place in historical memory, will have some light thanks to the work of Balbino García de Albizu and his colleagues.

This industrial chemical expert began a long time ago to investigate the “little story.” I had previously published four more volumes on the past of Améscoa. He has researched toponymy, dialect, refrigerators and parties, and his goal now is to publish, “write, write, write!”, following the advice given to him by José Miguel Barandiaran. He left the chemical company he served as an industry director and signed a contract with the municipalities of the valley of the ancestors to design his strategic plan without any salary.

García de Albizu knows the corners of Urbasa very well, not only for his topography and cartography with the ethnographer and friend José María Jimeno Jurio, but also for his eagerness to photograph the amaneceres and vultures that are there, but also for his grandfather Balbino García de Albizu, ranger and militant of Eulate, silage in 1936.

The history of the García de Albizu is that of a retaliated family. Uncle II. He died in the Republic as a result of prison: In February 1936 he went out in the street with the amnesty of the Popular Front, but he was already suffering from tuberculosis. Another uncle died in 1939 when he left Burgos prison, also with tuberculosis. Among them, the shot grandfather, the forced aunt, the prisoner father of the Condor Legion after giving up in Asturias: “When Gernika was bombed, the father and mother were there, but they didn’t meet. They never told me all that,” says García de Albizu.

My father was torn apart by the family. How did he get it?

Half of our father died then. He didn't talk about it again.

Not even grandpa's shooting?

Neither. Nothing.

And how did you know that?

Little by little. My older sister, although small in war, knew something else. France was exiled and from there they went to Barcelona, where he was in children's colonies. I, on the other hand, spent many years not knowing who I was. We lived in Donostia and we didn't go to Eulate. It doesn't surprise me now that I know everything.

*********

The chronicle of grandpa's firing is full of shadows. When on September 7, 1936, in the makeshift dungeon in the town hall of Eulate, six members of the UGT of the town were arrested, the priest received an order to confess to three of them: Balbino García de Albizu, Gregorio García and Balbino Bados. “With that, it was clear who and what something was going to happen to them,” says García de Albizu. The exact time of the afternoon at which they were taken to Urbasa is not known, apparently, in lorries, he said. Some pastors heard gunshots. “Maybe everything was clear from the beginning, except where the bodies were left, that was discovered later.”

In the 1950s, some speleologists came down to the cave of Arrasate and found bones there.

Eugene Roa de Estella descended with a pulse. It's very complicated, the sima is 10 meters down to the collapse, but then there's another 10 meters down. He who accompanied her faded because of what she had seen. At least there were bones of 8-10 people. At the top, I was expecting a lot of people, pastors, because everybody believed there was something.

So did you know what you were going to find?

Roa says they said people had been thrown there. But that was said for a lot of places. When they got to the surface, he didn't mean anything he'd seen. Luckily, he talked to Améscoa's doctor, who told our only aunt that he was staying in Eulate. Most likely, her aunt decided to close the hole on her advice, after having talked to the families of the other two people who had been killed with her grandfather.

But how did those who were there know that they were his relatives who had died in the war?

There is no doubt that the three were murdered by the people of the town: the night they were killed went to Estella to celebrate them with coffee, cup and pure. I've talked to a lot of people who lived, and they knew it.

*********

On the eve of the day of All Saints, the priest was there. It's hard to imagine that in the middle of Franco, they also asked for permission. They put a tombstone with the name of the three. Since then, there is the oldest monument in the Basque Country related to the historical memory of the civil war. García de Albizu knows who made the trail. But he doesn’t know what the JEL letters mean, almost erased at the top, because in his opinion it takes “a lot of imagination” to think that it is something related to the PNV.

The umpteenth closed, but the wounds didn't. At first, García de Albizu did not have much concern about the exhumations of rifles: “I thought my grandfather was there.” But in the '90s, when I was in Zudaire, a person came up to him. “He heard me say he called me Balbino and came to ask me, because many Balbinos are not in these Parajeos. I talked to him, and I found out that there were about ten bodies in the cave. Then I started researching more, when I saw that there could be seven other families who didn’t know anything.”

By that time, You're going to find out magazine had already begun to publish itself with Améscoa's accounts, and had also sued a person because "he called me bombs and he's getting ready to do these things. His father was the mayor, who dismissed my grandfather and probably gave the approval for him to be thrown into this cave. I kept quiet in the courthouse.”

In 2011, with the constitution of the new municipal governments, he saw the opportunity to promote a motion for the opening of a pit in several municipalities of Améscoa, including Eulate, which was approved by all with surprise.

It had to be 75 years before an official body asked for the opening of the umpteenth. Why?

It's easy. Balbino Bados was a teacher and his only son was from UPN. The left-wing councilman, Gregorio García, was a widower, he only had sisters and nephews. Silence. And our grandfather: two dead children, a dossier open to seize the house… What was the grandmother going to do?

Isn't it a question of stigma?

I think grandma thought: “I know where he is... They’ve killed him and he’s there!” In addition, Franco still lived, and since in those villages they were all Carlists, he was better silent.

And after the dictatorship?

My theory is that nobody has had an interest in getting too deep on the subject, some out of fear and bitterness, others because they don't like to know that it was their grandfather who signed that or who fired.

*********

The process of exhumation and identification of bones has been long. She first contacted the secretary of Aranzadi, then the association of relatives of Navarra's firefighters AFNA. In fact, in September 2012, there was the first small tribute to a group of family members and anonymous citizens. After obtaining the permission, the sima was finally opened at the end of 2013: “In the masonry I took myself to an apprentice, because the hole was very tightly closed, he said ‘pierce here, here and here’, went down and found the remains of at least six people.”

It wasn't a surprise, it's more, they expected more human remains. But they decided not to do so, so that the government would not object. They were abandoned there until, on Wednesday, Thursday and Good Friday of 2014, their complete exhumation was carried out. A lot of people came up, “the issue started to be glamour,” the historian says, “it wasn’t a thing for families anymore, there were many deaths.” García de Albizu has been very critical of the attitude he has had from different associations and areas.

A few days later, at the Donostia Hospital, Lourdes Errasti, of Aranzadi, and Pako Etxeberria entered the room of the building where they work, they found the bones of ten people placed on tables. The examination of the forensic doctors left no doubt: all men, all shot dead, some with the hole at the height of the temple, some down, and most died with a single bullet, minus three, including Balbino García de Albizu: “It was a lot of head and they had to give him the second shot.”

With disobedience, you have been able to know the details of what happened…

There were ten people, we didn't have any other information. Yeah, when they were thrown into the cave, they were all dead, and I'm grateful they know. Eugenio Roa once told me that I had seen one of them in the corner, as if I had tried to hide it…

Many such stories are told about the murders in Urbasa.

Yes, voices were also heard. Of course, they lowered five living dogs with a rope for the dead to eat and the vultures to do what they do with the young foals. The dogs couldn't get her out of there and they drank water coming down the walls. Did you hear noises? Of course, they were dogs. Until they started eating. Only two remained intact, the rest with bites. The evidence is this, there is no doubt.

How have you managed to identify what the bones were?

I would like to clarify that the identification was not carried out by Aranzadi, which is done with the historical part, since bones do not bear labels.

Did you have to start from scratch?

In practice, yes. I knew that in the Allin Valley and in the Álava Valley there was no one missing. By force they had to be on the other side of the mountain, and then I realized that I would have to include in the book all the dead in Urbasa. Who knew where I was?

*********

García de Albizu has worked for over 100 people: they have collected oral and written testimonies, they have searched for the General Archive of Navarra, they have requested data from the Ministry of Education and the Spanish Army; they have searched in more than 20 municipalities of Bizkaia, Álava, Gipuzkoa and Navarra, as well as in the foral deputies.

As a result, major steps have been taken to clarify the crimes committed in other areas of Urbasa. Data have been obtained on people allegedly thrown on the balcony of Ubaba, also known as Pilate, as well as those of the cave of Otsaportillo, until determining the number of possible deaths: “Jimeno Jurio went down to Otsaportillo in September 1977 and with him was Peio Iraizoz. He said after spinning and spinning the area, only 14-15 skulls were found. Well, I get the same amount.” Permission has already been requested for exhumations on this very site, by the hand of Amaia Urkijo, of Etxarri, who is engaged in research and shot his two grandparents in 1936.

The bones recovered from the Arrasate cave in Urbasa were an excellent opportunity to confirm the suspicions of historical research through DNA tests: “We’ve touched nine to nine, we’ll find the tenth, it’s harder, but we’ll find it.” In addition to the three neighbours of Eulate, five of Etxarri Aranatz and one of Zegama are bones of the people’s neighbours. In many cases it has been García de Albizu himself who has taken the samples to the relatives of the victims with the help of his nurse.

How have relatives reacted when they go to look for genetic tests?

The truth is that we could not give them absolute security. We said to them: “Look, what happens is that maybe your grandfather or your father is not in Otsaportillo, but in this other cave.”

These are difficult situations, have you never wanted to plant yourself?

Not because of that, because people in general have responded beautifully. But there have also been those who wanted to make another use of this account or just take it out in the photo. In those cases I thought I would not follow.

You took the samples and you paid them with the help of the municipalities. How can I explain that the Government of Navarre does nothing or finance when it has passed a law on historical memory?

It was clear that UPN would not put a penny. Rajoy left the budget with nothing and we already knew that Barcina was going to do the same. I was more surprised by the fact that I have to follow a number of municipalities. It seems to me that there is no interest in going into details, as if those who did were aliens.

Reporter Bingen Amadoz, in an interview we recently held in Argia, says that in all the villages there were “thugs”.

People made complaints, collaborated, and I mentioned them in the book, based on the documents that appear: mayors, judges, parish priests, sheriff… They all didn’t shoot, but many allowed this to happen looking away. I do not blame anyone, but to prevent it. If we continue with this practice today, treating the enemy as if it were a devil, then it can happen: in the end it convinces people that the enemy is better, better dead.