She became a symbol for anti-fascist movements – notably the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (ARMH) – as a result of her seventy-year struggle to recover the body of her father, Timoteo Mendieta Alcalá, and buried with twenty-three other victims in a mass grave in the cemetery of Guadalajara.

Ascensión Mendieta managed to use international human rights law in the so-called "Argentine Complaint" against the crimes of Franco, finally resulting in her father's exhumation in 2017.

A fascist revolution under Francisco Franco was mounted in 1936, and all members of the democratically elected Spanish government found themselves enemies of the state and subject to what has become known as the White Terror.

When Paz died, Ascensión continued her work, resulting in repeated appeals that were consistently rejected by the Spanish authorities.

Despite strong opposition from pro-Franco factions in Spain, the remains of her father were successfully exhumed, identified and reburied by the ARMH and an international forensics team in 2017.