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WITHOUT LOSING TIRES
If we take the fury of the signs to the extreme, someone might want to point out all those buildings that functioned as Czechs in Madrid during the Civil War.
They walk Felix Bolaños and its democratic memory army desperate to put up plaques that recall the past of many buildings (preferably in Madrid) that, during the dark war and post-war years, saw their original purpose tarnished and became scenes of the savagery of one another.
Now, the main objective of the commemorative hosts is the Real Correio, headquarters of the Government of the Community of Madrid, a building with a rich history, as in two long centuries of life (it was built between 1766 and 1768) everything happened there.
It served to organize the post office during the 18th century.
It was the headquarters of the Ministry of the Interior, the General Captaincy and the military Government.
Historical speeches scene (the queen Elizabeth II spoke to people from their balconies) or improvised healing room: in one of his rooms he was dying José Canalejasshot when he went out to buy sweets at La Pajarita sweet shop (others say that while he was looking, abstractedly, at the volumes in the window of the San Martín Bookstore).
The Post Office clock has been a reference for accurate time since the 19th century and now marks the official start of the new year amid shouts and whistles from the Spanish people.
The Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, handles the media.
Europe Press
On April 14, 1931, the flag of the Republic flew on the same balconies that housed the royal speeches. After the Civil War, the Post Office housed the shadowy General Directorate of Security, through whose dungeons political opponents passed to be subjected to indignities and ill-treatment.
The arrival of democracy changed the destiny of the country and also of the Post Office, which in 1984 became the seat of the autonomous government. And to this day.
In 257 years, the Royal Post Office served dishonorable purposes for thirty-nine years. The list of horrors that happened in its dank dungeons during the dictatorship is a terrible part (but only part) of the building’s long history.
The Sanchista forces are determined that the extensive record of services provided to citizens in the Puerta del Sol building will be summarized in one of those attractive plaques that recall the favors provided to the Franco regime by some buildings.
“Places of memory,” they call them.
But what memory are we talking about? I advise the Monclovites of La Palma to be careful with their enthusiasm for labeling: Carlos Fernández He recalled in X that the Moncloa Palace was rebuilt during the Franco regime to serve as a residence for heads of state who visited Spain.
One question, if the current Moncloa Palace was built by Franco, between 1949 and 1954, to receive foreign Heads of State who visited Spain, why doesn’t the Government declare it a Place of Memory as it has just done with the Headquarters of the Community of Madrid?🤔🤔 pic.twitter.com/41K3Tm6Q51
-Carlos Fernández (@CarlosF66089689) October 27, 2025
What do we do with memory? Would you like to Pedro Sanches remind him that he lives in a place meant to honor the dictator’s guests? Let’s go further.
Isn’t there a danger that we will take the fury of the signs to the extreme and that someone will want to point out all those buildings that functioned as Czech buildings during the Civil War?
Would the members of the Círculo de Bellas Artes (among which I am) like to see every day a small plaque that revives the Chekist past of the beautiful Antonio Palacios building?
Do the customers of a cheerful tavern in the heart of Chueca want to know that the place where they serve the best onion liver in Madrid was the scene of interrogations and torture?
Spain has a recent and painful past that should not be erased. But we cannot reduce its eventful history to the very dark years of Francoism, nor insist on insistently remembering that a dictatorship stains our near past.
Recently, at the presentation of a literary festival, the Government’s High Commissioner for the Celebration of Spain’s Fifty Years of Freedom (that’s it) said in her speech that a festival that celebrates culture We cannot forget that eighty years ago there was no freedom in our country.
Honestly, it made me want to tell her to hell.
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