Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory

The excavation of one of the mass graves in 2004 at Villamayor de los Montes near Burgos was the subject of a photo-documentary entitled Dark is the Room Where We Sleep at the International Center Of Photography in New York, New York. ==Political context==

Opening mass graves has been politically controversial. In 2007 the work of the Association was given state support by the Historical Memory Law, an initiative of the Zapatero administration. However, the Spanish government under Mariano Rajoy (2011–2018) was less cooperative and, for example, refused to open historical archives that would allow experts and historians to throw light on the fate of victims of the Francoist State. In 2020, El Pais reported that the Second government of Pedro Sánchez was working on the draft of a new law that would include a DNA database and an official list of Civil War victims. This legislation came into effect in 2022 as the Democratic Memory Law. ==See also==