When Mario Martín Cantal holds a small box with his sister’s remains, it seems that he has received the most precious gift. The dust of Heloise’s bones is the gold, incense and myrrh of memory, truth and a certain reparation, since there was no justice. With his remains, the now great-grandfather Mario also receives another small, square wooden box, with the appearance of a humble jewelry box. Contains a bracelet and some Heloísa buttons. She was 19 years old when she was executed in Granada. One day in September 1936, a group of six or seven fascists broke into the family home on Navarrete Street and took Heloísa away. She was a dressmaker and was not involved in politics. Not even in union activities, when the union was still class pride and dignity. They say that Franco’s coup plotters were looking for Nicolás, his older brother, whose sin was being linked to the Socialist Party and the UGT, and who later had to go into exile. Since they didn’t find him, they took revenge on her.
Her brother Mario was 3 years old at the time and, although he does not remember it, it is possible that he saw how Heloísa was kidnapped, or heard her screams and those of other relatives when she was torn from his life forever. It is easy to imagine the devotion that the boy Mario felt for the young Heloise: a sister who is sixteen years older than you, adores you and, for you, is a goddess. “I found her, and I thank God because in the name of God they killed her,” says Mario, 89 years later, once his sister has been identified among the victims of the Víznar Ravine Grave. When the fascists took her away, they left her imprisoned in a convent, used as a women’s prison. A few days later, on October 6, they transferred several of them to the Víznar Ravine, to kill them. Heloísa was killed by a shot to the head, fired from very close range.
Source: www.eldiario.es
