Hombrecino (Little man)

For over 35 years, my grandfather carried with him a list of typed names in his wallet. They were neighbours and friends who had been executed at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and left abandoned in mass graves. Since I was a child, he would often read those names to me, emotionally, describing with amazing detail who they were, and gave me a glimpse into a life that I came to know through his memories. My desire to understand his longing led me to places that held the memory of the conflict and the missing people, places where he had fought during the war and exhumations of mass graves. What I liked the most was showing him on my return what I had seen and, little by little, my search became a shared journey with him. Although these people had been missing for more than sixty years, they had remained alive in his memory. They really disappeared when my grandfather’s memory began to fail but before that happened, we could return to his village together to meet with the names of the list for the last time.

A personal story that becomes a collective story, dedicated to all those missing in wars who have not yet been found.