After the Spanish civil war General Franco and his fascist rebel government decided to punish those who had fought against them.
Anybody who held opposing viewpoints were punished. Franco declared his enemies undesirables and banned them from raising their own children.
Top of the list, of course, were republicans, Marxists, communists, socialists, trade unionists, indeed anyone who had dared to defend the legitimate government against Franco and his fascist rebels or accept his fascist ideology.
Franco went much further, ruling that anyone who lived beneath a specific wage, the poor, were not fit to raise a child.
The job of taking those babies away from single mothers and families who didn’t fit into his idea of ideal citizens was given to an efficient network of priests and nuns within the Catholic church.
They also added any single mothers to their targets for baby theft.
An amazing 300,000 babies were stolen from their parents between 1939 and the 1990s in Spain.
Anybody who held opposing viewpoints were punished. Franco declared his enemies undesirables and banned them from raising their own children.
Top of the list, of course, were republicans, Marxists, communists, socialists, trade unionists, indeed anyone who had dared to defend the legitimate government against Franco and his fascist rebels or accept his fascist ideology.
Franco went much further, ruling that anyone who lived beneath a specific wage, the poor, were not fit to raise a child.
The job of taking those babies away from single mothers and families who didn’t fit into his idea of ideal citizens was given to an efficient network of priests and nuns within the Catholic church.
They also added any single mothers to their targets for baby theft.
An amazing 300,000 babies were stolen from their parents between 1939 and the 1990s in Spain.