25 March 2026
Bilbao
As part of the series “Social Cinema and Human Rights”, on Friday, 13 March, the Pedro Arrupe Human Rights Institute organised a film debate session around the documentary “Popel, cenizas para no devolver” (Popel, Ashes Not to Return), directed by Oier Plaza. The documentary focuses on the search for Basque, Catalan, and Spanish deportees in Nazi concentration camps during Franco’s dictatorship, and their unexpected discovery in a public crematorium in the town of Hradištko in what is now the Czech Republic. Following the leads of meticulous investigative work, researchers and family members uncovered the story of František Suchý, father and son, who worked at the crematorium and managed to hide the ashes of over 2,000 people that Nazi officials had ordered them to cremate after their deaths in the concentration camps.
After the screening, the session continued with a discussion involving Unai Eguia and Antón Gandarias, key figures in the reconstruction and discovery in the Czech Republic, and Gustavo de la Orden, researcher at the Institute. Unai Eguia, a visual arts teacher at an ikastola, began his personal search in 2020 after reading Javier Cercas’s novel El impostor, which recounts the life of the man who impersonated Enric Moner, a deported Catalan. Until then, nothing was known about the real deportee, so Unai pursued the questions raised by the book and began his investigation. This led him to contact Antón Gandarias, relative of Ángel Lekuona, a disappeared Basque deportee, as well as the families of other deportees who had shared exile with Enric Moner and Ángel Lekuona. After years of research, in 2024 they were able to hold a tribute to the discovered victims and officially twinned the towns of Hradištko and Busturia, Ángel Lekuona’s birthplace.
The session was also attended by Joserra Plaza, producer of the documentary, and Mikel Garteiz-Goxeascoa, Honorary Consul of the Czech Republic for the Basque Country and Navarre.
