On July 14, 1986, twelve civil guards were assassinated by the “Madrilenian command” of ETA in the Dominican Republic Square, in the Chamartín neighborhood. They were heading in a caravan towards the Benemérita motor park, but they did not arrive at their destination. … On November 7, 1991, Antonio Moreno, a Civil Guard agent from Bilbao, decided to take his unruly twins to the Deusto indoor swimming pool to see if they were consuming energy. They didn’t arrive. His car jumped into the air and cost Fabio Moreno his life. He was two years and four months old. The youngest victim of ETA. These are two of the memories of the barbarity that the victims themselves share with the photojournalist Fidel Raso, who experienced the horror behind the camera, in “Revealed Memory”, the documentary directed by the journalist Pedro Lechuga, which emphasizes the importance of photojournalism when it comes to leaving a graphic testimony of the terror and pain it causes.
The film will be released next January and was possible thanks to a collaboration received from the Board of Directors of the Association of Victims of Terrorism of Castilla y León. For its president, Sebastián Nogales, the role played by journalists and photojournalists during the 60 years of ETA was “fundamental” so that today “new generations are aware” of what happened.
ABC and EFE archives
The director of León explains that the documentary work also explores how the photojournalists experienced all this, how they felt, if they “were more than just spectators”… For this, throughout the film there are “intimate” conversations between Fidel Raso, who, after the assassination of Miguel Ángel Blanco, left the Basque Country out of exhaustion and has been residing for some time in Urueña (Valladolid), and various victims. Among them, two Castilians and Leonese who suffered the attack in the aforementioned square of the Dominican Republic. The dialogues take place as they observe together some of the snapshots that colleagues took “in situ” provided by the ABC and EFE archives. Nogares himself is the protagonist of another of the meetings organized by Fidel. The president of the Association of Victims of Terrorism of Castilla y León was brutally beaten by members of a group linked to ETA while carrying out surveillance work in a San Fermines in Pamplona, an attack of which no graphic testimony remains, of which Pedro Lechuga takes advantage of asking the viewer if in these cases it is easier for the memory to end up being erased from the collective memory.
Photograph of the attack on the Plaza de la República Dominicana in Madrid
The 60 minutes of the film also includes a conversation between Fidel and Álex Moreno, Fabio’s brother, whom the photojournalist “always said was one of those who shocked him the most.” The photographer also meets Marimar Blanco in Madrid to “share feelings and sensations” about the work he did after the assassination of his brother Miguel Ángel, on July 13, 1997. It is “a very personal documentary in which the victims and Fidel open their hearts and their memories”, underlines the director, who signed, among other works, “Coyanza-1975, Nuclear Democracy” and “Las Cuevas Menudas.”
The film ends with the reflections of three journalism students from the University of Valladolid, who look at photographs of different attacks, some “unthinkable to see in the newspapers today because of their crudeness”, believes the director, who thus wanted to “bring these years of barbarity to the present day” and see “what they suggest to new generations”.
Their goal is that, from its premiere next January, this film can be seen in secondary schools and in all universities in Castilla y León. According to Pedro Lechuga, among young people, “there is a total lack of knowledge” and “this is regrettable.” “Of course”, there is “a real fear of falling into oblivion”, says Sebastián Nogales, criticizing the fact that those who supported the terrorists now have “more visual significance”. “Those who must tell what happened are the victims. What is not possible is for the story to be told by the murderers. We cannot afford this as a democratic society,” says Lechuga. He believes that the education system should be involved. For now, he wants to contribute “a grain of sand”.
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