MINGORRUBIO, Spain —
This tree-lined neighborhood north of Madrid is home to some 300 residences, a handful of bars, one playground — and now, two of the 20th century’s most ruthless autocrats.
Though Spanish military dictator Francisco Franco and his Dominican counterpart, Rafael Trujillo, are long dead, their presence loomed large here late last month when Franco’s remains were exhumed from an austere basilica in the Valley of the Fallen and transferred to the quiet cemetery on the edge of Mingorrubio.
The burial ground, surrounded by rolling hills and a weed-covered soccer field, is the final resting place for a handful of prominent right-wing stalwarts: Trujillo, who has been buried there since 1970; Franco’s wife, Carmen Polo; and Luis Carrero Blanco, the Francoist politician whom the Basque terrorist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, better known as ETA, assassinated in 1973.
