Monte Ezcaba (Fuerte de San Cristóbal), Navarra. (2017)
On 22 May 1938, there was a mass break out, mainly of Republicans, from the prison at Fort San Cristóbal. Some 207 of the 795 prisoners involved were recaptured and killed as they tried to escape over the mountains to France. Only three managed to cross the French border. Today, the fort and its surroundings contain the bodies of the shot fugitives, as well as an indeterminate number of unregistered prisoners taken out and shot by Falangists and about 400 prisoners who were left to die of starvation. In 2009, an adjacent grave was excavated and the bodies of 131 prisoners who had died of tuberculosis were found. A bottle containing an identification document had been placed between the legs of each the deceased, giving the site the name of ‘the cemetery of the bottles’.
