Columns
WITHOUT LOOSETING MOORINGS
If we take the fury of the plaques to the extreme, someone might want to point out all those buildings that functioned as Czechs in Madrid during the Civil War.
moment Felix Bolaños and their army of democratic memory desperate to put up plaques remembering the past of many buildings (preferably in Madrid) that, during the dark years of war and post-war, saw their original purpose sullied to become scenes of the savagery of some and others.
Now, the main objective of the commemorative hosts is the Royal Post Office, headquarters of the Government of the Community of Madrid, a building with a rich history, since in two long centuries of life (it was built between 1766 and 1768) everything has happened there.
It served to organize the postal service during the 18th century.
It was the headquarters of the Ministry of the Interior, the Captaincy General and the military Government.
Scene of historical speeches (the queen Isabel II spoke to the people from their balconies) or improvised healing room: in one of its rooms he lay dying Jose Canalejasshot when he was leaving to buy candy at the La Pajarita candy store (others say that while he was looking, abstracted, at the volumes in the window of the San Martín Bookstore).
The clock of the Post Office has been a reference for exact time since the 19th century, and now it marks the official start of the new year amid shouts and whistles from the Spanish people.
The Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, attends to the media.
Europa Press
On April 14, 31, the flag of the Republic flew from the same balconies that had hosted royal speeches. After the Civil War, the Post Office housed the gloomy General Directorate of Security, through whose dungeons political opponents passed to be subjected to indignity and mistreatment.
The arrival of democracy changed the destiny of the country and also that of the Post Office, which in 1984 became the headquarters of the autonomous Government. And until today.
In 257 years, the Royal Post Office has served dishonorable purposes for thirty-nine years. The list of horrors that took place in its dank dungeons during the dictatorship is a terrible part (but only part) of a building’s long history.
The Sanchista forces are determined that the extensive record of services to the citizens of the Puerta del Sol building be summarized in one of those atrabiliary plaques that remember 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 labeling enthusiasm: Carlos Fernandez He recalled in X that the Moncloa Palace was rebuilt during the Franco regime to serve as a residence for heads of state visiting 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 does the Government not 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 Sanchez to remind him that he lives in a place designed to pay homage to the dictator’s guests? Let’s go further.
Isn’t there a danger that we will take the plaque fury to the extreme and that someone will want to point out all those buildings that functioned as Czechs during the Civil War?
Would the members of the Círculo de Bellas Artes (among whom I am) fancy seeing a little plaque every day 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 find out that the place where they serve the best onion liver in Madrid was the site of interrogations and torture?
Spain has a recent 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 High Commissioner of the Government for the Celebration of Spain’s Fifty Years in Freedom (there’s that) said in her speech that a festival that celebrates culture You cannot forget that eighty years ago there was no freedom in our country.
Honestly, it made me want to send her to hell.