In the run-up to the 50th anniversary of Francisco Franco’s death on Nov. 20, 2025, the left-leaning Spanish government led a vigil honoring the many victims of the dictator’s regime.
While the exact numbers remain impossible to determine, historians estimate that Franco’s men killed up to 100,000 people during the brutal Spanish Civil War, and tens of thousands were executed during his dictatorial rule from 1939 until his death in 1975. Hundreds of thousands more were imprisoned, sent to labor camps or subjected to political persecution. To these figures, we must add the roughly half a million people who fled or were forced into exile.
