Lorca relatives accept mass grave probe

MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- Relatives of the poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca, executed in 1936 by fascists during the Spanish Civil War, will not try to block a judge's order to exhume his remains from a mass grave, a niece of the poet told CNN Thursday.

The family, however, prefers that the site remains undisturbed, she said.

For years, the issue of whether to exhume Lorca's remains has pitted descendants of the world-famous poet against relatives of two other men -- a teacher and a bullfighter -- also executed and thought to have been dumped in a mass grave with Lorca.

The families of those two men want to exhume their loved ones and bury them properly.

They petitioned a Spanish judge earlier this month. The judge agreed to study their case as part of a broader effort that could mean exhuming the remains of potentially thousands of Spaniards still in mass graves.

Many were killed by right-wing forces loyal to General Francisco Franco, who won the three-year long Civil War, which began in 1936. Franco went on to rule Spain with an iron fist until his death in 1975.

For years, the Lorca descendants have argued that Lorca -- whose poems and plays are widely studied at universities, including his "Poet in New York" -- should not be exhumed, mainly so that he would not be seen as more important than the many other Civil War victims thought to be in nearby mass graves.

But one of his nieces, Laura Garcia Lorca, told CNN on Thursday, "We will not oppose a decision of the judge."

Six nieces and nephews of Lorca agree with the position, she said. Their stance was first reported on Thursday by Spanish newspaper El Pais.

The judge, Baltasar Garzon, has not yet decided what to do about the site at a village near Granada in Lorca's native southern Spain.

"This is one of the happiest days of my life," said Irish author, Ian Gibson, who is a leading scholar on Lorca. "The (Lorca) family sensibly changed position. Lorca is the most famous victim of the Civil War. It's a huge step in the right direction."

Gibson added, "I think Lorca can be a symbol for reconciliation of the Civil War."

Laura Garcia Lorca said the family would prefer to leave the poet's remains where they are, even after a potential exhumation, so that "the figure of Lorca could serve to protect the site" in memory of all who were executed there and put into mass graves.

But Nieves Galindo, granddaughter of the teacher, Dioscoro Galindo, whose remains are thought to be lying with Lorca's, told CNN, "It's a shame it's gotten to this point. We've been trying for 10 years. It could have been done without all this."

Galindo said if the judge eventually orders to exhumation, the Lorca family would have "no other choice" but to accept it.

The Galindo family wants to bury the teacher in the cemetery of the nearby village of Pulianas, where he last taught before being executed.

Spanish parliament last year, led by the Socialist government, passed a law condemning Franco's dictatorship and calling on town halls to fund initiatives to unearth mass graves.

It also sought to honor Roman Catholic clergy and others executed by the losing side in the war, the forces loyal to the leftist Republican government.

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