Spain faces its past in mass graves bill. Will it be enough?

For decades, family members of the tens of thousands victims of Francisco Franco's brutal regime in Spain have had little help from central authorities to recover their loved ones from the country's hundreds of mass graves

GUADALAJARA, Spain -- Carnations in hand, 94-year-old Julio López del Campo has come decade after decade to mark the spot where he believes the body of his brother, Mariano, was tossed into a pit along with other victims of the brutal regime of Francisco Franco in Spain.

“They took him to the prison in Guadalajara and in 1940 he was shot,” Julio said at the site next to a cemetery chapel. “I have come here every year since. I bring carnations and leave a few. I will keep coming until my strength gives out.”

More than 70 years on, the mass grave in Guadalajara, a small city just east of Spain’s capital, Madrid, has finally been dug up, and 26 bodies were recovered. Julio now hopes that a genetic test will confirm that Mariano's remains are among them.

The Guadalajara exhumation was carried out by volunteer associations who, along with some of Spain’s regional authorities, have led the fight to recover the missing and return them a shred of the dignity they have been denied for over half a century.