Emilio Silva

Emilio Silva Barrera (born November 9, 1965, in Elizondo, Navarre) is a Spanish sociologist, journalist, and activist for the recovery of Historical Memory.

[1] He is one of the founders and president of the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (ARMH), a collective that has been searching for the mass graves of victims of repression in the Francoist zone during the Spanish Civil War and the subsequent Franco dictatorship.

[2] Though he initially aspired to pursue poetry,[3] Silva graduated in Sociology and Political Science from the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) and has dedicated most of his professional life to journalism.

[3] In the summer of 1999, he left his job to write a novel related to his family history during the repression unleashed by the Francoist troops and paramilitaries after the July 18, 1936 coup.

In March 2000, following an interview with the communist militant and former political prisoner Arsenio Marco, he located in Priaranza del Bierzo (León) the site where his grandfather, Emilio Silva Faba, had been buried in a mass grave along with twelve other men.