HISTORY AND MONUMENTS

Narrator
Spain is ambiguous about its past. It's golden age was also its darkest age. However glorious or bathed in blood, it has left the country an incomparable legacy of castles and palaces, monuments, monasteries and museums. The Escorial, at the outskirts of Madrid, is a monastery-palace built by Philip II. Therein lay the mortal remains of the kings of Spain and it is the traditional mausoleum of the Spanish monarchy. Only a few kilometres away is the Valley of the Fallen, where Francisco Franco is buried.

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Narrator
This war memorial was built after the Civil War, using prisoners as forced labour. Most Spaniards prefer not to remember the site. However, the sculptor, Juan de Avalos, who carried out the work on all the sculptures adorning the memorial, cannot forget.

Robert Elms
Your work today is quite different to what you did in the 'Valle de los Caídos', isn't it?

Juan de Avalos
People change, we do not stay the same... feelings and sympathies are another thing, so this sculpture here cannot be treated in the same way as, say, another.

Robert Elms
When you see the 'Valle de los Caídos' memorial, what are your feelings?

Juan de Avalos
It is a complex matter, and a much-discussed one. When I was invited to participate in the competition to create the Valley, I was very much taken by the landscape where the cross was to be erected. I had to create figures that were in harmony with nature, with those strong, powerful rocks that jut up, but without losing... the notion of coming down from the Cross, with evangelists on the altars. I also had to take care with the language I used. What was needed was a popular language, something that everyone could understand, given that the Valley, which has such an unfortunate reputation, was built to bury the dead from both sides under the sign of the Cross. I was fascinated by this, and had many problems. I was denounced many times as I was not affiliated to the regime, because I was a Republican. All of that and the misinterpretation of the sentiment behind it caused many problems. Both the Republicans and the Nationalists murdered people. I think we should shut up about it, we should seal our lips and look ahead to the future.

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