European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - April 3, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse I is gut Schut blur it Toledo hers e Section of the City Walla. Vot Umbus to Iho now of cd he Spanish government Las declared Toledo the Headquarters of sep Harad ? and a Symbol of Spain s re encounter wit hits wish heritage when world jewish Congress president. Edgar Iron Man visited Toledo a year ago mayor Jose Antonio Talma the old City needed $100 million Over he rent i of Accad of to reverse a do Ponulak Iron Irene Hai Ireat ened Iho City into a ghost town listed with Notum ends and tourist shops. Of Toledo s 60.000 inhabitant some 16,000 live Isicc the City s moorish Walls where streets Are As wide arms pairing is impossible and everyone knows what you re doing in Itie words of Ilene Kennedy an englishman who is married Loa spaniard and who lived in the old City Lor six years evenings and weekends the main Zoc Dovet Stoa ills with peo pub who come to Exchange gossip drink a Leer or buy Almond paste Marzipan a moorish jewish Stacy and a Toledo specially. Many of the Dwe bings in Toledo have been abandoned Over the years by squabbling heirs who Lon t want to live 42 Miles irom Madrid Many Are either i faces or hovels too big or ton Small Tor single families Tamer mayor Juan Ignacio de Mesa who is a member Othi foundation s directors is looking to a Way to technology to make a medieval Day tabla. De Mesa is working Wilh representatives of the City s Nair industries Lacatel. Nixdorf and the Beecham and Fonsen pharmaceutical firms to Salvo mundane but ires sing problems of whal to do with the electrical and Ole phone lines Hal Dangle in clusters and crisscross. Row streets and the television antennae that sprout irom of Tise roots. The Spanish government through the ministry of culture s restoration department has earmarked $710,000 n 1999 for work on Toledo s Mamlic Casl 1 3lh-Cenlwy Atho dral the torn Erias mosque. Santa Maria la Blanca my Iho Santa pc Convent a similar Quantity was budgeted last year the ministry s museum department spent another 290,000 restoring the House of Iho Pamler �1 Greco the Transito Church and Tho Santa Cruz museum the regional government spent another s609.00o these amounts de Mesa says ate but a drop n the Suckul. The foundation is in the process of drawing up Tho if St Overall plan to present to the mistry of culture on Oyhat has to to done to establish what mrs 1amholomew Calls the very Fine balance Between a museum City and a City that lives " Spanish govern Mon support Lor the plan is essential in encouraging fund rating from other sources she adds de Mesa says the Lack of a Spect tic plan has hindered and Raia Fng irom sources outside Spain including Mcmican groups hat could to interested in he est oration of Tho City s old jewish Quarter my 3 j 969 Valley of the fallen Monument was built by prisoners taken by tones of sen Francisco Franco in tha three year Spanish cml War that ended in 1939, ushering in so year Franco dictatorship. Reluctance to confront divisive past by Susan Linee associated Pressi n san Lorenzo de escorial a sweeping Esplanade and a giant Granito Cress thrust up irom the surrounding mountains they Dwarf the schoolgirls who Are on an ruling at the Valley of the fallen a Monument of sorts la the Spanish Civ War " Hayoung visitors Giggle shout and strut oblivious to the presence in the crypt of is nearby roman Catholic Basilica of fio Bones of 40.doo people who died in the bloody Irali Iclal. Conflict that ended 60 years ago this month Nailer the Monument built by prisoners of War who were overwhelmed by the Lorce Sot Gen Francisco Franco nor the memory of inc i Roe year conflict seem to weigh very heavily on the spirit of a modern Spain whose population seems to think More in terms of upward mobility and where to spend next summer s Holiday the government prime minister Felipe Gonzalez omitted Public Observance on april 1 Lor the Darin 1939 the end of Franco s uprising against the second Spanish Republic and ushered in his 36 year dictatorship the socialists Fry to distinguish themselves from the fran costs by not keeping alive the memory of the civil War British historian Paul Preston said there s nothing Good to remember it was t really the end it was inc beginning of very dil cult limes Lor Many Many people " socialists. Communists liberals anarchists and ire thinkers alike suffered in Iho harsh repression that followed Franco s Victory he outlawed All other political parties and tried to build a righteous rightist Spain until his death 14 years ago the War did t realty end in 1939, the hardships and conditions of War continued Well into the late 1940s." said sociologist Marido do Miguol people did t marry very much a great sense of depression set in there was a terrible shortage of food and Ihen the guerrilla warfare against Franco went on into the 1950s." Many who fought on the Side of Tho Republic died from hunger and ill treatment while hacking away at the granule mountains to build the Valley of the fallen 3v Miles Norl Wesl of Madrid. Since 1982, the Valley of Iho fallen which Franco designed As his burial place Hai been administered by the National Patrimony. So be said hey Hope it gradually will lose its fascist Connola Lions and slip into he vast collection of old Cas lies and monuments that Tiol Tho Spanish landscape. But. I to late Spanish historian Claudio Sanchez Albornoz exhorted his countrymen not Tolor Gol the civil War.,he wrote thai during the j 931-39 second Republic spaniards Ifird to carry Oul religious political and economic revolutions that their european neighbors had taken centuries to realize. Spanish historian Javier Tusell and culture minister Jorge sem run also Are concerned about spaniards reluctance to confront their past it is striking that , which has gone through a peaceful transition Isom dictatorship to democracy has. Not however developed a shared historic conscience Tusell wrote recently in a Madrid newspaper it s not a banal Issue because the image that a group projects of itself on Trie past willingness to live in Harmony in the present and the future sem run who whole the screenplay for Alain Renais 1964 film la Guerra of Limo Tho War is Over As a Spanish exile in France warned participants at recent academic conference that spam would be in trouble without a his Oncay memory. To my the Gap Many of the country s leading newspapers Ptan special supplements dealing with the end of the War and its relevance today a member of the friends of former Spanish refugees said the government has agreed to help Wilh the group s project to have As Many indigent elderly Exilas As possible Clurn to visit Spain this year As Long As no mention wore made of the end of the civil War that drove them away in Iho Lisl place. And a surprising Success of the currant literary season has been a novel Enlil Iod Luna de Lobos wolves Mooney 31-year
