they were detained together, by be rail, a profession which then meant “presumption of guilt”, in the words of the historian Miguel Muñoz, author of several studies on the francoist repression in the sector. Was 1936. Were Joseph and Rafael Machuca to a prison improvised and one night they went to look at one of them. “They were never returned, so when they went for my uncle, my father knew I would see him again and my uncle, who were going to kill him. He said: ‘do Not worry that you do not do anything’. And it is supposed that he was lucky, because my father only put him in jail and prevented him from returning to work for always in the trains,” recalls Juan Machuca, 86-year-old. “When my grandmother Pauline was to see them, he was told that Rafael was no longer there. The poor went to all the sites you came to ask for his son. Spent a lifetime looking for it. He was then 26 years old. Today we still do not know where they threw it away”.
Machuca was this Thursday, one of the most excited in tribute to the railway exproprations of francoism that took place in the Atocha train station. “We always think of teachers, and I recognize that I was not aware of how it had affected the repression of the rail world”, confessed to the minister of Fomento, José Luis Abalos, who presided over the tribute. “Had participated in workers ‘ struggles important, were rebels inveterate, and that is why the regime is wroth with them”, he added.
The figures, collected by the historian Francis Polo speak Milanobet of almost 83.000 rail debugged, 88% of the template. “There was a time in which they had to stop to punish because they were without sufficient labour, especially in specialized positions such as machinist,” explains Muñoz. Almost 6.800 were sanctioned with a prison term: months to life imprisonment. About a hundred were sentenced to death. And an unknown number were shot, as the uncle of Juan Machuca, without trial or sentence. In 2011, in Burgos, the technical Aranzadi opened a pit with 59 bodies. The office of the victims made it known as “the pit of the railway”.
The dictatorship, is to create a police-specific reports of the employees of the railway sector and to identify potential opponents. “Infiltraban in the templates for espiarles, control their friendships and movements, and produced about 120,000 chips workers”, added Muñoz.
The honorees pose next to the minister of Fomento, José Luis Ábalos, before the sculpture to the rail repressed during the franco years in the station of Atocha.
Marina Pita de la Vega, present in the tribute to his 93 years, departed from his position in Renfe for the crime of having married. “Then women had no glass roof, but of cement, and when they were married, forced to take a leave of absence forced. They could only go back if the husband died, was incapacitated, or had a separation of the that they were not the culprits,” explained his daughter, Gabriela Cañas. In 1983, Marina Pita de la Vega regained its square. “It was democracy, and that regime 78 as a beating now that he managed to retrieve his position and the rights lost during the franco regime. These past five years that my mother was able to work on Renfe was very happy.”
The tribute was immortalized with a sculpture that from now remember, in the station of Atocha railway repressed by the franco regime. In front of the figure, which simulates the train tracks, Juan Machuca wanted to remind you about two women: his mother, his seven children helped by trying to eat olives, and ears that were in the field, and her grandmother Pauline, who never stopped looking at Rafael. He also wanted to take advantage of the microphone to launch a message that was of a concern: “these young aspiring politicians, I say, please, that to moderate”.
Records of debugging of railways during the franco regime.