San Rafael in Malaga, among Europe's largest exhumation sites

Today, the Parque de San Rafael is a little slice of tranquillity in western Malaga city. People walk their dogs or lie reading on the grass, and children run around the new playground. But the marble pyramid in the park, which stands at eight metres tall, is a stark reminder of San Rafael's tragic past. Inaugurated in 2014, it serves as a mausoleum for the 2,840 victims exhumed from mass graves at this site, which once was the Cementerio de San Rafael. These are some of the 4,471 people murdered here during the Civil War and Franco's dictatorship.

The excavation team confirmed, at the time, that the mass graves at San Rafael were the largest extermination zone of Francoist repression in Spain. In fact, this is thought to be one of the largest set of graves exhumed at one site in all of Europe. Relatives of the victims first requested for their bodies to be recovered in 2003. In the summer of 2005, the universities of Malaga and Granada, as well as the regional Andalusian government and the Malaga Association Against Silence and Forgetting, carried out a series of studies which located five mass graves at the old San Rafael cemetery. The exhumation of victims took place between 2006 and 2009; nine mass graves were discovered, and almost 3,000 bodies were recovered.

San Rafael was opened in 1867 as Malaga's second cemetery, after the Cementerio de San Miguel became overcrowded. The two cemeteries closed in 1987, with both since reopening as parks. Funding for the transformation of San Rafael was initially provided in 2009, with the idea of transforming it into a space of historical memory. When converting the old cemetery into a park, the city council agreed to keep part of the old wall as a symbol of the memory of those who had been ruthlessly killed there.

Initially, there was talk of the park being named 'Parque de la Memoria', although today it is known simply as the Parque de San Rafael. Original plans also included a monolith in the park alongside the pyramid. Today, this impressive marble pyramid bears the names of the victims who now rest below it, inscribed across its facades alongside a quote which reads, "In memory of those who lost their lives in defence of freedom and democracy, whose remains rest in this mausoleum and other places." On the 11 January every year since its inauguration, a ceremony, led by the mayor of Malaga, Francisco de la Torre, is held in memory of the victims.

Malaga suffered greatly during the Civil War. At the start of the conflict, it experienced a revolutionary movement which took the lives of an estimated 2,500 people. When Franco's forces launched the brutal Battle of Malaga in early 1937, with the support of Italy and Nazi Germany, the Nationalists took control of the province. Those civilians who attempted to flee towards Almeria were bombed, shelled and shot at by Nationalist tanks, planes and ships, in what is known as the 'Desbandá'. Between 3,000 and 5,000 were killed, many of whom were mothers carrying children.

Andrés Fernández Martín and Francisco Espinosa Jiménez have written an extensive history of the conversion of San Rafael into a site of memory. Their book, San Rafael (Málaga): Las Fosas, Febrero 1937- Noviembre 1955, details the eleven years between families requesting the exhumations of victims from San Rafael, and the inauguration of the pyramid.

Malaga's old Jewish cemetery also lies in the grounds of the Parque de San Rafael, although it is currently in a state of disrepair.

The mausoleum at San Rafael is a poignant symbol of the history which Malaga must not forget, and has become a monument important for many - here, people can pay respect to the lives lost at the cemetery, in Malaga, and further afield in the tragedy of the Civil War.