The second day of trial of the Pazo de Meirás has had as protagonists two expert witnesses who have performed a thorough historical tour explaining how the Pazo went from being a private property of the heirs of Emilia Pardo Bazán to a building that cannot be separated, according to these experts, from the public ownership represented then by the figure of Francisco Franco, always as Head of State.
Both have been explaining with Different examples such as the Pazo, since its purchase, the expropriations were always raised as a donation to the Head of State, not to the personal figure of Franco. In the words of historians, what the local political authorities of that time wanted was “an approach of the State to Galicia”. A process that was run with threats.
Manuel Perez Lorenzo, Historian and author of the book on the Pazo de Meirás, has pointed out: “The mayor of Sada at that time said> and on another side it says>”.
The presence of public administrations is clear to Lorenzo, either through the figure of the mayors who raised the money for the purchase and reform of the Pazo. Waves Implications of the City Council of A Coruña, on the verge of bankruptcy for donating 25,000 pesetas in 1939. A City Council that became “a service company”, according to Carlos Babio, co-author of the book on the Pazo: “The City Council of A Coruña becomes like a service company for all kinds of needs that occur in the Pazo, Logging, water, grass cuts, at your disposal during the summer. “
Both agree that the Pazo de Meirás it functioned as “a royal court” equivalent to the Palacio del Pardo, official seat of the Headquarters of the State. Meiras was in summer, for all political purposes, what El Pardo was the rest of the year.
In the work of both experts, the file that is kept distributed among different administrations has been essential and which, they recognize, has not been easy to access until well into the 21st century. They have highlighted the still existing difficulties in accessing the file kept by the Royal Household, heir after Franco’s death from the Civil House linked to the Head of State.
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