Today was a beautiful day with many pleasant things we could report on. With luck, we’ll have more of that in the days ahead. Instead, though, we want to share something that gave us pause.

After walking through rolling farmland in the morning, the path became a much steeper climb through oak and pine forest in the afternoon. At the top of this trail through the La Demanda and San Milan mountains were picnic benches where we could rest.

Across from us was also a concrete monument with a prominent number, 1936. The guide booklet we used mentioned that the tall marker commemorates those who died in the Spanish Civil War.

To our great dismay, we learned from the signage on the site that this was the spot of two mass graves of Republican fighters executed between July and December, 1936. Three hundred people died here. The bodies of 160 people have been exhumed and relocated to a mausoleum in the nearby town of Villafranca.

One mass grave containing 30 bodies was abutting the Camino. Another larger one was about 100 meters away.

The graves were opened in 2011 which means that for about 70 years pilgrims were unknowingly tromping past (on?) these remains.

Camino pilgrims who labor to travel to the site of one man’s relics (Saint James), also pass over the remains of hundreds of people killed — some would say martyred — for the cause they believed in.

The site was extremely sobering and thought-provoking to witness.

The first two generations after the Spanish Civil War didn’t want to talk about it. It was the third generation that began to insist on finding out what happened. It’s been very controversial, but the families of the people killed here prevailed in exhuming the remains of their kin, naming those killed and giving them a dignified interment.

Plenty of atrocities occured in the Spanish Civil War; in all wars, no?

The question Lori pondered on the long walk down the mountain was,  how do we ever stop doing this to each other?