The attacks against the bust of Aurora Picornell, symbol of the anti-Franco struggle

PalmThis is at least the fifth time the bust of Aurora Picornell on the Paseo del Molinar in Palma has been vandalized. Memoria de Mallorca, which monitors the incidents, has already reported the three most recent attacks to the Prosecutor's Office for Democratic Memory and Human Rights: one in 2023, another in October, and this Monday's attack, the second in less than a month. Its spokesperson, Maria Antònia Oliver, points to a "fascist resurgence" that has targeted the Mallorcan trade unionist. Miquel Rosselló, representative of the Platform for Democratic Memory, partially blames the Speaker of the Balearic Parliament, Gabriel Le Senne (Vox), who is under investigation for a possible hate crime for having torn down her portrait during a plenary debate. "He is the second highest authority in the Balearic Islands, he emboldens his supporters and incites hatred," he laments.

On Tuesday, cleaning crews from Palma City Council removed swastikas and other Nazi symbols from the sculpture by artist Margalida Fonollà. The City Council will also have to restore the statue, which was badly damaged and possibly treated with corrosive material. Rosellón argues for the need to protect the piece in some way, as he anticipates further attacks. "In recent years, Picornell's figure has become a very clear symbol of the anti-Francoist left," he explains, recalling the "great impact" of the discovery of her remains. "The flip side is that she is also hated by the far right," he points out. "This shows that the far right is extreme, because we are talking about people willing to strangle and paint swastikas on the statue of a woman they killed when she was 24 years old," he says. "Those who paint them, I suppose, know what they are, and that many deaths are behind them."

Oliver agrees, believing that Le Senne's actions in Parliament demonstrate Picornell's symbolic weight. "We don't know who is behind these attacks, but we do know that the Democratic Memory Law will be repealed at Vox's insistence," he continues. "Meanwhile, the PP and Vox in the Consell de Mallorca have decided that the road signs commemorating political prisoners should be removed, signs which were also being torn down by someone every so often," he says. Although the Vox parliamentary group has not commented on these acts of vandalism, it has Vox Palma has done itUnder the leadership of Fulgencio Coll, who stated in a press release that "ideologies and fanaticism do not justify any type of vandalism."

For historian and expert on Picornell, David Ginard, these attacks "reflect a state of permanent tension that is unhealthy for democracy and point to a phenomenon—hopefully a passing fad—of the rise of far-right movements. Even during her lifetime, Picornell possessed numerous qualities that shaped her as a symbol, and over time this iconic power has been consolidated and reinterpreted," he explains. The communist and trade union leader, who was executed by a Falangist guerrilla group, along with the Rojas del Molinar women, in 1937, already "had enemies" in her own time. "In the midst of the war, the Francoist writer Ferrari Billloch described her in a report as a harpy, a perverse woman," he explains: "This term, incidentally, is a classic in the vocabulary of the far right against left-wing women."