>>19305818 PB
Just before we were taken 'off line'
08/05/23 (Sat) 19:55:43
SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOTABLE LAST NIGHT
A TANGLED WEB: STEALING NEWBORNS IN TWENTIETH CENTURY SPAIN
A tangled web: stealing newborns in twentieth-century Spain
Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden
“We were Europe’s baby supermarket and babies were stolen for sixty years.”
— Inés Madrigal
Twentieth-century Spain was a politically unstable, highly divided nation. In 1931, King Alfonso XIII abdicated after the results of elections were interpreted as a plebiscite on abolishing the monarchy.
What followed was “one weak government after another.”
In 1936, with a socialist coalition governing Spain, “army leaders, backed by some of the country’s wealthiest families, decided they…had enough of democracy, and more than enough of socialism.”
Army general Francisco Franco (1892–1975) was chosen to lead the revolt.
The resulting civil war (1936–1939) was a manifestation of the divisions in Spain.
The legal, socialist government (the “Republicans”) was supported by party-line communists, Trotskyites, anarchists, socialists, and some low-level Catholic clergy.
The rebels (the “Nationalists”) consisted of the Spanish army, large landowners, and the Catholic church hierarchy. The Republicans got support from international volunteers, Mexico, and the Soviet Union.
The Nationalists were supported by ground and air forces of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.
Half a million people died in the war. Of these, 20% (100,000) were killed in battle. The remaining 400,000 died in air raids or from executions or disease.
The Republicans (called “Reds” by their enemies) confiscated church property and killed about 10,000 bishops, priests, nuns, and monks.
The Nationalists (“Fascists”) imprisoned and often murdered anyone who did not demonstrate Nationalist sympathies. Providing food to a Republican fighter could result in a long prison term.
After the Nationalist victory in 1939, the ruling party found other ways of punishing opponents and preventing children from “inheriting” anti-government ideas from their parents.
Pregnant woman who were Republican sympathizers, socialists, atheists, or unmarried, were considered “degenerate.” They could not be good mothers, and their newborns needed to be adopted into “better” families.
Some women were heavily sedated at the time of delivery and then told that their (liveborn) baby had been born dead.
Other women saw and heard their newborns, who were then taken “to see the doctor,” and were later told that their baby died of a congenital anomaly.
Some women delivered twins but were told that they gave birth to a singleton, and that they must have been confused.
https://hekint.org/2022/04/25/a-tangled-web-stealing-newborns-in-twentieth-century-spain/