After nearly a century of uncertainty, the remains of José León Trejo, a former French teacher and Republican councillor in Seville, have been formally identified and returned to his family. Trejo, executed in 1936 during the early days of the Spanish Civil War, is the first of 1,786 victims exhumed from the Pico Reja mass grave in San Fernando cemetery to be identified through DNA analysis. The identification, reported in June 2026, followed a complex process involving degraded remains and commingled bones. His grandchildren and relatives from across Spain attended the handover ceremony, a rare moment of closure in a process still beset by delays and unresolved cases.
Anthropologist Juan Manuel Guijo, who led the exhumation efforts, confirmed the identification. Trejo’s remains were placed in a wooden urn wrapped in a Republican flag and carried to the family tomb, which one of his sons prepared decades ago. The family felt palpable relief, along with frustration over the slow pace of genetic testing. Many relatives of other victims are still waiting for answers as direct descendants age and pass away.
Trejo’s story reflects the broader tragedy of Spain’s Civil War reprisals. Born in 1880, he joined Seville’s city council in 1931 and later briefly served as civil governor of Guadalajara. His political activities, including the exile of Cardinal Segura, made him a target after the military uprising. Arrested at home in June 1936, Trejo was executed without trial alongside other democratically elected officials. His widow and nine children endured decades of silence, choosing not to pass their grief or resentment on to the next generation.
The search for Trejo’s remains was complicated by the fate of his two brothers, Manuel and Joaquín, who were also executed but have not been found. Because the brothers shared close family ancestry, an initial genetic match could point to the wider León Trejo family rather than conclusively identify one individual. The University of Granada’s forensic laboratory requested additional targeted samples from descendants to help distinguish among the brothers. The identification drew on comparisons with family reference profiles and statistical-probabilistic analysis. So far, only José León Trejo has been identified, leaving Manuel and Joaquín’s fate unresolved. The family suspects Manuel may also be in Pico Reja or another nearby grave, while Joaquín’s body could lie in an unmarked roadside burial.
Initially, the Pico Reja exhumation was expected to involve around 850 victims of repression and 253 others, but the findings revealed a much larger tragedy. The grave is now considered Spain’s largest mass burial site and the second largest in Western Europe, with more than 10,000 bodies interred between 1936 and 1940. The excavation recovered the remains of 1,786 victims, making Trejo the first person from the grave to be formally identified. The site includes a trench reported to be about four metres deep. Its scale has challenged historical assumptions and made the separation and identification of commingled remains especially demanding.
Despite the breakthrough in Trejo’s case, the process remains slow. DNA samples from Pico Reja were first sent for analysis in late 2020, with the last batch dispatched in mid-2023. The University of Granada’s laboratory has processed 757 bone samples and 437 family samples for this site alone, while handling thousands more from other Andalusian exhumations. The backlog has become a major concern for families and experts, including Guijo and Trejo’s grandson, Fernando Sarmiento León.
For Sarmiento and his relatives, the return of their grandfather’s remains brings long-awaited closure. For the families of the remaining 1,785 victims, but, the wait continues. Many do not know whether their loved ones are in Pico Reja or the neighboring Monumento grave, which holds an estimated 2,600 more victims but remains unopened because of administrative delays. The current city government, led by the PP, has not prioritized the project, prompting other authorities to seek alternatives.
Spain’s efforts to address the legacy of Civil War reprisals remain contentious and slow-moving. The Pico Reja case shows the challenges of preserving historical memory amid bureaucratic inertia, as well as the personal toll on families. Similar themes of unresolved trauma and generational impact have appeared in cultural works, including recent theatre productions addressing Spain’s past. The search for justice and closure continues, with José León Trejo’s identification marking a key stage in a process that remains unfinished.
Spain’s Law of Historical Memory, enacted in 2007, aimed to recognize and support victims of the Civil War and dictatorship, but implementation has varied by region. The exhumation of mass graves remains a complex and often politicized process, with thousands of families still seeking answers. Trejo’s identification is a impressive step, but the broader challenge of addressing Spain’s historical wounds persists.
