Calle de los Mártires de Paracuellos

Behind this name lies one of the darkest episodes of the Civil War in Madrid. Between 7 November and 4 December 1936, as the front drew near the city, thousands of prisoners were pulled from Madrid’s jails through the transfers that the slang of the time called sacas. They were loaded onto buses and lorries under militia escort and driven to the ravines of Paracuellos de Jarama, where they were shot. The number of victims is still disputed, from some two thousand five hundred to several thousand: soldiers, clergy, Falangists, aristocrats and civilians arrested for sympathising with the rebels. The name honours those who were shot. Calle de los Mártires de Paracuellos is short and narrow, barely over two hundred metres, tucked between Cuatro Caminos and Castillejos, in the heart of Tetuán. Today those few metres of tarmac bear the name of those who left the jails and never came back.