Property, the Forging of Francoism and Collective Memory

The mass confiscation of property by Francoists during and after the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939 stands out as one of the most testing issues in Spain’s tortuous recent past. This article explains popular participation in the seizures. It also seeks to overcome the divorce in the historiography between Francoist and Republican confiscations and between the history of the seizures and their collective memory. It further shows that historians struggle to bring the seizure into the public sphere because of obstacles created in particular by the reluctance of those controlling the Spanish state to confront this dark past.