Your article (28 March) about Spain's stolen babies scandal highlighted an important issue that is only beginning to come to light. But it does not mention the other scandal involving the Franco regime's treatment of the children of republican families in the early postwar period.
The Franco regime ensured women's only role was motherhood, enforcing this through educational and legislative measures; all mothers were expected to raise the next generation of loyal Francoist citizens. Mothers on the losing republican side were not deemed "acceptable" as they would raise children in a manner which deviated from the Francoist maternal ideal. Historian Ricard Vinyes has shown that the Francoist state interfered in the family lives of the war's losers in a number of ways. Family ties were sometimes forcibly cut through the imposition of measures such as forced separation and deportation. The children of some women detained as political prisoners were sent to state orphanages or religious centres without parental consent, and the parents lost legal guardianship. Occasionally the names of these children were changed and they were given up for illegal adoption. Testimonial narratives of resistance of Spanish republican women imprisoned under the Franco regime provide ample references to such practices, yet the matter has yet to be fully investigated by the Spanish government.
Jonathan Freedland rightly pointed out that a full reckoning of the Spanish past has not yet been achieved (In Franco's shadow: why Spain has kept its civil war buried, 28 March). However, many parents imprisoned under the Francoist regime have died without knowing what happened to their children, and these children have never been able to trace their biological parents. Scandals such as these illustrate that not only does Spain's civil war past have to be uncovered, but also the postwar impact of the strong arm of Francoism and its intrusion in family life and parent-child relationships.
Deirdre Finnerty
Visiting fellow, University of London
• Your "Spain week" has done much to illuminate the harsh reality of life under crisis – particularly for the 43% of young Spaniards that are unemployed. Writers have rightly identified the key role in the crisis of Spain's own property collapse. However, on several occasions labour market protections were also identified as a major cause. The opposite is the case. The job haemorrhage has hit young people hardest because most were on precarious fixed-term contracts before the crisis. Their jobs were the first to be shed. This job insecurity also helped depress general wage levels, which decreased as a percentage of GDP and fuelled indebtedness. The flip side was increased profits for firms – including banks. But these were channelled into the property sector, encouraged by low EU interest rates and a high euro. The result was a particularly lethal bubble. Further weakening of labour protections will probably worsen the crisis, and create more needless pain.
Luke Stobart
Barcelona, Spain