In the opening weeks of the Spanish civil war, Republicans in the village of Villaroya, in the remote hills of Aragon, suddenly found themselves surrounded by “nationalists” who supported the military uprising of General Francisco Franco. It was August 1936, and political cleansing on an unprecedented scale was taking place on both sides of the conflict. The nationalists in Aragon were moving from village to village, rounding up “reds’’ for execution.

Manuel Lapena, an anarchist trade union leader who was also the local veterinarian in Villaroya, led 17 men from his village in an attempt to reach the relative safety of Guadalajara, which lay closer to Republican Madrid. They were ambushed on a narrow mountain path, and shot. Only one man escaped.