Paracuellos, Volume 1 by Carlos GiménezMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
"History (is) an act of reconstruction - memory as a public process of reconstructing voices in which no voice must have the last word." ~ from Carmen Moreno-Nuno's afterword
This is an incredible graphic collection in itself, but the true story behind the book is even more important.
Author/artist Carlos Gimenez of PARACUELLOS was brought up for eight years in a Spanish state home in the early 1950's, where the children of the victims of fascist dictator Francisco Franco were brought up. This is no easy read, as the terrible events portray abuse of every kind, ranging from starvation to physical assault. In this social home, priests and nuns and government officials used the tools embraced wholeheartedly by Hitler and Mussolini, and all fascist states: violence and disinformation.
But it isn't all heartbreak. A few individuals stood apart for their refusal to conform to the daily evils all around, and Gimenez gratefully records the self-sacrifice and goodness of the gardener and the villagers whose decency and humanity helped them survive.
When Franco died, Gimenez finally decided to record the trauma of his past, for future generations to learn. This went beyond art, as the prevailing attitude of that time was 'forgive and forget.' But Gimenez knew that historic amnesia meant future reenactments, and persevered despite rejections from most publishers, and even death-threats!
Memory and History are precious precisely because they are social constructs, in the sense that there has to be a collective and ongoing effort to revive it, to help keep it alive. We live in dark times, when our country's collective amnesia is strategically organized thru Tiktok and armies of paid trolls, with political advertisements based on lies, while men with guns enter universities and confiscate books that reveal the truth of the past. (For more information, go to https://handsoffourlibraries.crd.co/ )
It happened in Spain. It has happened here in the Philippines, once before. Let us not permit it to happen again.
"Carlos Gimenez teaches his audience that the history he lived through is part of our collective history, and as such is common patrimony for us all. Because the Franco regime suppressed knowledge of these events, Spaniards had to learn all over again who we were and where we came from, starting by giving life again to that which the regime wanted to remain dead." - from Antonio Martin's introduction
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