Throughout much of 20th century Spain, a criminal network of doctors
and nuns stole anywhere from 40,000 to 300,000 babies from their
mothers at birth, constituting one of the most horrific yet least known
events of the Franco dictatorship.
General Francisco Franco came to power in 1939, after winning a civil
war that had bathed the country in blood for three years. In the four
decades that followed — and up to his death in 1975 — Spain stayed
mostly closed to the outside world, delaying industrial progress and
punishing those who fought on the losing side of the conflict. It was
during those years when it is believed that tens of thousands of infants
born to “undesirable” families started disappearing from their mothers’
hands.