Spanish Civil War 1936–1939
Paredón de España (El Terrer), Paterna
Repression & memory site
The story
After Valencia fell in March 1939, the Franco regime used the wall of a former quarry beside Paterna cemetery, known as El Terrer or the 'Paredón de España', as its main execution site in the province. Records document 2,238 people shot here between 1939 and 1956 and buried in mass graves 65 to 135 of the neighbouring cemetery. About 94% came from the Valencian region. The graves have been the focus of exhumations driven largely by victims' relatives, many of them women. The adjacent cemetery now holds the '2238' memorial listing the names. This is the most important site of post-war repression in the Valencian Community.
What you can see today
The bullet-scarred wall with a monument and plaques; in Paterna municipal cemetery nearby, the mass-grave area and the 2238 memorial.
Plan your visit
The wall is in the open near the cemetery and a school sports hall; the cemetery keeps normal daytime hours. Please behave respectfully, as families still visit.
Sources
- mapcarta.com/es/N2154313164
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fosses_de_Paterna
- ibanramon.com/en/proyecto/2238-memorial-paterna/
Nearby sites
- Refugio de la calle Serranos, Valencia · 6 km
- Palau de Benicarló (seat of the Republican government) · 6 km
- Refugio antiaéreo del Ayuntamiento, Valencia · 7 km
- Sierra de Espadán – Las Tetas & La Ràpita positions · 46 km
- Línea XYZ – La Muela & La Vegatilla trenches, Jérica · 46 km
- Línea XYZ at Viver – Morredondo, Cerro Cruz & El Ragudo bunkers · 48 km
All 158 sites in Spanish Civil War 1936–1939 →
The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939
A free field guide for your phone: the route, the maps and the stories built in, even with no signal. The battlefields, trenches, ruined villages, shelters, museums and memorials of the Spanish Civil War across the whole of Spain, told fairly from both sides.
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