Original subtitles

A derelict compound in Texas,

once the epicenter of a violent revolution.

It was exciting, but it was also dangerous.

Bullets were flying.

Artillery shells were going off.

They had front row seats to this amazing battle.

A top secret facility outside Berlin

used by a ruthless dictator to escape justice.

This place should've lost all relevance,

but it had one final dramatic mission to carry out.

And an aristocratic party palace

that became an IRA stronghold.

The women would use these statues,

these symbols of colonial oppression

as target practice.

In downtown El Paso, Texas,

a hollow construction holds a revolutionary history.

It's a very attractive, stately old building.

But once you go inside,

it's a pretty sad state of affairs.

There's wires hanging out of the ceiling.

Windows are taken out of their frames and stacked up.

Nearby, right next to the freeway

which straddles the border,

a second abandoned building

was embroiled in the same dramatic struggle.

It's a huge warehouse-style building.

It looks like it might've once been

a small industrial operation of some kind.

The rooftop is a prime vantage point

to look right across the border

into the neighboring Mexican city of Juarez.

And if you look closely,

you'll see that there's damage on the walls.

Pivotal in the birth of the Mexican state,

these bullet holes are remnants of a time

when El Paso was caught in violent crossfire.

So, the question is, how are these two buildings...

This one here on the border, this one here in the city,

how are they connected?

These buildings might look a little forlorn today.

But there was a time when this town was a hotbed of international intrigue.

From here, a revolution was planned

and a war was launched,

while citizens watched from their rooftops,

El Paso was once Spanish territory.

But it became part of the United States

when America annexed Texas in 1845.

It began as a trading post,

and became one of the most

important points of contact between US and Mexico.

Between 1890 and 1910,

the population of El Paso quadruples.

You see this explosive growth

as kind of a window on America's southern border

in an outlet and an inlet for trade.

This once ornate structure

was born during that early prosperity.

Richard Caples was a former mayor of El Paso

and kind of a local big shot.

He had big plans for the city and wanted to help it grow.

Construction began on this building in 1909.

It was planned as a five story office building

with retail on the ground floor.

It was built at tremendous cost.

A $135,000 at the time,

which works out to be $4.5, $5 million today.

This is the Caples building, named after its owner.

It was still under construction

when the abandoned warehouse half a mile away

hosted an iconic meeting of presidents.

The gathering took place out front of the El Paso Laundry,

which sits right on the border.

There was a historic international meeting

between Mexican president Porfirio Diaz

and American president William Taft.

This was an important turning point

in Mexican American relations.

People crowded around this street.

There was a lot of pomp, a lot of ceremony.

Viva Taft, viva Diaz,

viva Mexico, viva the United States.

David Dorado Romo

understands the subtext of this event.

There seemed to be a lot of agreement and harmony,

but that was just for public show.

Diaz was really the archetype of a corrupt dictator.

He maintained his power by crushing dissent,

not really allowing the free press,

favoring certain elites.

He was also known to be in the pocket

of big American businesses.

In El Paso,

Diaz was seeking to further cement American support

along the border in the run up to a crucial election.

His rival was intent on bringing democracy to Mexico,

something Diaz had no intention of allowing.

Diaz had thrown his main political opponent,

a formidable a man by the name of Francisco Madero,

in jail during the proceedings.

Madero actually had managed to escape from prison,

and he headed across the border to El Paso.

At that time, that wasn't a major division.

There was no barbed wire. There was no fence.

Mexicans could cross freely.

So, Madero snuck into El Paso disguised as a laborer,

and took up residence on the top two floors

of the newly completed Caples building.

He made it the epicenter of his endeavors,

and he really only had one goal.

And that was to violently overthrow the Diaz regime.

So, on this floor,

the international headquarters of the Mexican Revolution

was situated in early 1911.

So, this was a place that would have served

for diplomatic, administrative,

but also arms smuggling and, of course, recruitment.

Madero even managed to gain the support

of legendary Mexican revolutionary Poncho Villa,

which earned him some significant clout.

With an open border,

these headquarters were at the heart of an explosion of activity.

El Paso then really became this hub

of different revolutionary groups

who all set up shop in different bars,

restaurants and buildings throughout the city.

Despite Madero advocating democracy,

the US government eventually issued a warrant for his arrest.

But in reality, just like American big business,

they turned a blind eye

as they waited to see how the chaos would play out.

During my research, I found more than 80 buildings

that are still standing here in El Paso

that have connections to the Mexican Revolution.

There was probably hundreds, if not thousands of spies.

A lot of people have compared El Paso

to East and West Berlin during the Cold War.

You had Madero and his associates plotting, raising money,

building support.

Diaz had his spies gathering information.

No one really knew who was on what side or who you could trust.

And it was all building to a truly violent conflict.

April 7th, 1911, Madero made his move.

Madero leads an army into the city of Juarez

to launch this re-conquest of Mexico

from the dictatorship of Diaz.

Madero had put together a force of 2500 men.

But Juarez was well defended by 700 Mexican federal troops,

who were in a very good defensive position.

They had artillery, they had plenty of weapons.

Madero was happy to just call it a stalemate

and start negotiating.

But one notorious gunslinger in the rebel's ranks

had come for a fight.

The time for talking was over.

2 In 1911,

the Caples building served as the headquarters

of Mexican revolutionary Francisco Madero,

as he launched an assault on the city of Juarez

just across the border.

Damage to the roofs of buildings across El Paso

are testament to the chaos that followed.

While Madero sought to negotiate a surrender,

the more aggressive Pancho Villa disobeyed orders.

He went ahead and led his troops on the attack,

and a raging battle commenced.

In the city of El Paso, this was very exciting.

They were right on the border.

People climbed to the rooftop of the laundry building,

where they had front row seats to this amazing battle.

So, this was one of many rooftops in El Paso

where people would stand on top.

There were some where you would have to pay a quarter to a dollar

to watch the revolutionary scenes.

They were treated to a spectacle

straight out of the Wild West.

One story is that one moment,

one of the federal soldiers dropped his gun.

And one of the revolutionaries

got out his lariat and lassoed the guy.

He was able to, like a Mexican cowboy,

bring him in together with his gun.

And people on the rooftops started applauding,

just like if it were some kind of ringside seat.

But it ended up becoming a much more deadly, spectator sport.

These citizens didn't realize how close they were to the danger,

and five were killed and 18 wounded in El Paso

from fighting that was taking place in Juarez.

Today we just let the,

the newscasters take that danger.

Back then, everybody wanted to be part of the act.

So, these the bullet holes

actually have a lot more significance than meets the eyes.

They were part of the story of the Mexican Revolution.

Eventually, after two days of intense fighting,

the Juarez garrison was forced to surrender.

This battle of Juarez became the decisive battle of the revolution.

It was enough to show that the forces loyal to Diaz

could not control the revolutionary troops.

Diaz fled Mexico,

leaving its leadership up for grabs.

Madero eventually came to power in late 1911,

but he proved to be too moderate.

By 1913,

another Mexican general led a US-backed coup,

and unfortunately, Madero died in the resulting conflict.

What initially was a relatively bloodless revolution

is going to become 10 years of incredible civil strife.

And you're gonna have hundreds of thousands of Mexican refugees

crossing to United States.

David's grandparents were among them.

America's role in the revolution

was a sign of things to come.

That's a story that's going to repeat itself

for decades in Latin America,

where you have US military intervention,

or you have the CIA overthrow,

democratically elected governments.

And as a result, you're gonna have social chaos,

people fleeing into the United States.

While the laundry would continue to operate

for many more years,

the Caples building endured long periods of vacancy,

before both were eventually abandoned.

These structures are symbolic

of tensions that remain along the border to this day.

But a developer has purchased both properties

and hopes to transform them into apartment buildings.

If that happens,

the future residents can certainly claim

that they live in a location of historic intrigue.

In eastern Germany, just 25 miles from Berlin,

a secretive complex lies hidden in the woods.

The forest that we are driving through

was a restricted area until 1994.

Looking at the security around this place,

this must have been one of the most closely guarded places

in all of East Germany.

If you came here, you risked the threat of the death penalty.

As you delve deeper into the heart of the site,

its scale becomes apparent.

We can see here that nature has reclaimed something

and it has reclaimed something big.

You see a collection of buildings

that could house a, a city of thousands.

But as with any ghost town,

you have to ask yourself what happened to all the people?

You go inside, cobwebs, trash, crumbling masonry,

tumble down structures that are fading or flecked or graffitied.

But through the thick foliage,

a different style of structure begins to emerge.

We've got something that's boarded up,

and yet you can tell what it is.

This is a control tower. This is an airfield.

There's one massive building near the runways,

clearly an aircraft hangar.

This facility would provide shelter

and an escape route for a ruthless dictator

desperately fleeing justice.

Sven-Uwe Storm grew up nearby

and was always eager to understand

why this site was out of bounds.

The area was very large, yet fenced off with a wall.

It was a no-go area.

And access is still forbidden,

due to the high risk of unexploded ordinance.

That's because this location has a long history

as a weapons test site, which began in the late 1800s.

We are standing here on an area

that has been under artillery fire for decades.

There are a lot of shells in the ground.

This was a place where they tested

rifles, artillery, rockets.

And this was a place where Werner von Braun,

the father of German rocketry came to test his missiles,

They even conducted experiments on uranium

for a German atomic bomb.

But in April 1945,

Soviet troops were rapidly approaching through these thick forests,

as the allies closed in on Berlin.

In the aftermath of the Second World War,

this complex was incorporated into Soviet territory.

Germany was carved up among the victorious allies,

with the Soviets occupying East Germany.

They split Germany with the Western powers.

But they also split the city of Berlin,

which is inside the Soviet zone.

Initially just a line drawn on a map.

in time, it would become a physical wall,

as the two camps polarized along ideological lines.

The formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization

or NATO in 1949,

was seen by the Soviets as a hostile act.

West Germany joined NATO in 1955,

and Khrushchev formed the Warsaw Pact in response.

So, now you have these two opposing alliances,

one western, one Eastern,

and it feels like things are hotting up.

And for the Soviets,

this is the front line in the clash

with the Western powers in the Cold War.

With a 1000 miles separating Moscow from Berlin,

this location was earmarked to supply that frontline.

This is Sperenberg Airfield.

The key link between East Germany and the Soviet Union.

During the first phase of construction in 1958,

the site was converted into a military airfield

capable of handling huge transport planes.

Anything that the Soviets were bringing into Germany

to prepare to fight against NATO

came into this airport.

In the 1960s,

the boundary dividing Berlin was fortified

by the East German government.

Desperate to prevent its citizens

from fleeing into West Germany,

they installed guard towers

and ordered any escapees to be shot and killed.

Overseeing its construction was Erich Honecker,

and he soon turned his attention to Sperenberg airbase.

Honecker was one of the key people

in building the Berlin Wall.

A ruthless dictator

who subjected all of East Germany to his unquestioned rule.

Honecker and the Soviet Army

initiated a new phase of construction at Sperenberg,

turning it into a military airbase

of unparalleled proportions.

And it would come to Honecker's rescue

when his enemies were circling.

2 During the Cold War, Sperenberg was turned

into the mightiest Soviet air base in East Germany,

under the leadership of ruthless dictator Erich Honecker.

The real expansion is in the 1970s.

when you see Soviet bombers, Soviet fighters,

Soviet combat helicopters,

and lots of Soviet civilian airliners

that are shuttling personnel.

It was the fastest and most direct link

between Berlin and Moscow.

And the only Red Army airport

that also had a civilian terminal building

for use by families,

as well as musicians brought in for troop entertainment.

Five thousand people had to be accommodated here.

Children from kindergarten to school, cinemas and shops,

The Sperenberg base became the most valuable

military airfield in East Germany.

There's no doubt about that.

But just as Sperenberg had gone through a major upgrade,

the Soviet's iron grip of East Germany began to loosen.

Numerous pro-independence groups began to form

as people demanded things

like democratic elections, freedom of speech,

and the withdrawal of Soviet troops.

Honecker refused to shift his ground at all

and kept insisting that using the security service,

the Stasi, which had informers everywhere

and thousands of agents,

that he would just repress all dissent in East Germany.

And he nearly pulled it off.

East Germans were one of the last Warsaw Pact nations to rebel.

The Berlin Wall was being ripped down

by Berliners East and West.

As the Soviet Union began the mammoth task

of withdrawing 360,000 troops and their families

from across Eastern Europe,

the new government brought charges against Honecker.

As East Germany frees itself from the one party control,

the hunt is on for these creatures of the communist regime,

chief among them, Honecker.

Everybody knew that Honecker had approved orders

for East German border guards to shoot, to kill,

if anybody tried to escape East Germany.

That meant that Honecker had a noose around his neck.

On the run and desperate to avoid a show trial,

Honecker turned to his overlords in Moscow.

The last thing anybody needs

is a trial with Erich Honecker,

talking about the truth of the East German communist regime.

So, Sperenberg throughout this period is in Soviet hands

as they shuttle people home, using this airbase.

You know, hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops,

and family, that were housed in East Germany.

So, in March 1991, Soviet communists

see an opportunity to spirit Honecker out of East Germany.

Under the cover of darkness,

he was brought to Sperenberg by Soviet troops.

We are in the former reception building

of the VIP lounge.

This is the actual living area of Erich Honecker, and Margot Honecker.

The personal security would have been very tense during that time.

The couple, then boarded a plane on the airstrip,

right beside the building, destined for Moscow.

Honecker was later extradited from Russia to stand trial in Berlin,

appearing in court in November 1992.

Honecker was defiant until the end,

claiming that the Berlin Wall had saved lives,

that it prevented World War III,

which would have killed millions.

The trial was quickly abandoned

due to his deteriorating health,

and he died two years later.

At that point in 1994,

the last of the Soviet equipment and people

were still being moved out of Sperenberg.

But since then, the site has remained abandoned,

and largely untouched.

Local residents have formed a museum association, offering guided tours,

and are pushing for the 2,000 acre complex

to become a UNESCO World Heritage site.

In the Republic of Ireland

lie the remains of a doomed vanity project.

We're in County Carlo, an hour south of Dublin,

in a wet and windy Irish countryside.

One structure, casts a long shadow

over the surrounding landscape.

When you first see the building,

you almost can't believe it's still standing.

The place has been hollowed out,

but the walls are still intact.

It's got the parapets and battlements of a medieval castle.

Anybody looking up at this tower would realize

that these people were in charge.

In charge of their lives and in charge of their destiny.

But the owners of this residence,

felt the ground shifting under their feet.

The building once housed a powerful and influential family,

but a tide of change was coming to Ireland,

and this place was caught in the middle of it.

It went from an aristocratic party palace

to an IRA stronghold.

But one organization took up residence here,

whose role in Irish independence

has been almost entirely forgotten.

2 It's really a privilege to have this at our doorstep,

and lots of people in Carlow don't actually know that it's here.

Danny McDaid has dedicated much of his time to researching this site

and dispelling the many myths that surround it.

When you look upon this house, now, you see a ruin,

a Gothic mansion which has suffered horrendous damage.

But for me, looking upon it,

I see life. I see what it was.

This is Duckett's Grove,

historical home of the Duckett family.

The Ducketts were married into the Protestant elites,

and moved to Ireland

during the years of English plantation, and colonization.

With the marriages that they made,

and the money that they made,

they built the Georgian style house,

a very square, basic house.

But then, in the 1820s,

the Duckett family starts to massively expand it

and makes it into this Gothic dreamland castle.

The family had a reputation

that matched the extravagance of the building.

The last of the Duckett line

was a man named William Duckett,

and he was known as quite the eccentric, quite a philanderer.

He married a much, much younger woman.

Maria Duckett and William Duckett

liked nothing more than to party.

They loved a good party.

And then William Duckett, would've ran downstairs

to play the organ to welcome the people in.

Some of the parties would have lasted for days.

During the Irish famine,

Protestant William Duckett, extended his generosity

to residents across the county, regardless of their faith.

He was generally well-liked for a British landlord.

He provided food for the work houses and paid good wages.

Here in Carlow, the death rate during the famine

was less than in other counties, in part due to Mr. Duckett.

But, while he offered charity to his Catholic neighbors,

his wife, Maria, a staunch Protestant, held a different attitude,

one born of bigotry and paranoia.

She felt that she was way above everybody else.

She had almost a disdain for local people.

She had a big distrust

and probably a big fear of Catholics.

She was always looking over her shoulder

at her Catholic staff and the grounds workers.

Anti-British and anti-Protestant sentiment was sweeping Ireland,

stoking Maria's fears.

And that was soon compounded by the death of her husband.

William Duckett died in 1908.

But when he died, this house died with him.

Maria Duckett stopped all the parties.

She fell out with some of her neighbors.

So, for eight years, Maria Duckett, lead a very solitary life.

And her worst fears were soon realized.

In April 1916, Irish Republicans launched

an armed insurrection against British rule,

known as the Easter Rising.

You can only imagine. If she was paranoid before,

this must have felt like the end of the world.

She believed that she'd be rounded up and be killed.

So, she packed it all in, abandons Duckett's Grove, and leaves for England.

The house became vulnerable,

as the newly formed Irish Republican Army prowled the countryside.

In their fight for independence,

the IRA targeted big houses like this,

which stood as a symbol of British colonial oppression.

Between just 1919 and 1923,

the IRA looted and burned almost 300

of these country mansions across Ireland.

But, William Duckett's lasting reputation in the county

ensured a different fate for his grand house.

Because they had supplied food into Carlow during the famine,

and because they had kept employment high,

the local people asked the IRA not to burn Duckett's Grove.

Instead, the Army devised a use for the sprawling mansion,

that would grant it a new life.

It's practically already a fortress.

You've got these walled gardens where you can garrison troops.

There's this giant tower where you can see

everywhere from over a hundred miles.

The property was turned into an IRA training center.

Soon, three new arrivals would make their mark on the mansion.

During the Irish War for Independence,

three women were locked up in the Mountjoy Prison in Dublin.

Mae Burke, Eithne Coyle, and Linda Kerns.

They were imprisoned for various Republican activities,

trading guns, possessing seditious materials,

generally aiding the revolution.

What happened next made international headlines.

And their story's straight out of the great escapes of World War II.

They fashioned ropes and ladders, and they escaped.

When they broke out of Mountjoy jail in Dublin,

they stole bicycles,

and they cycled from Dublin to Duckett's Grove.

The escape plan was orchestrated by Michael Collins,

the IRA's director of intelligence.

Three of the women cycled the 50 miles

to find the previously abandoned mansion, transformed.

It was now a fully-fledged IRA base,

occupied by 400 men.

The women quickly set about getting the camp in order.

They set up an Officers Mess,

nursed the wounded back to health,

and even organized concerts to keep up morale.

But they weren't just here to support the troops.

They were part of what was known as Cumann na mBan.

Cumann na mBan was the Irish Republican's women's association.

They were at the heart of the rebellion in Ireland.

They ran guns.

They supplied intelligence.

They worked in Dublin Castle,

supplying Michael Collins with information.

But the War of Independence

would soon turn into a bloody civil war.

As the IRA fractured, Collins was struck down by his former comrades.

2 In October 1921,

three women from the Irish Independent Army

escaped prison and fled to Duckett's Grove,

an abandoned mansion converted into an IRA base.

The escape was orchestrated by IRA leader, Michael Collins.

They used Duckett's Grove

as a command control center

for operations against the British.

You might see, in old paintings,

that there were statues once,

covering the grounds of Duckett's Grove.

But most of them are gone now.

The women would use these statues,

these symbols of colonial oppression, as target practice,

blowing them to smithereens.

One particular photo of the women survives.

Rifles in hand,

standing triumphantly in the door of the house,

with the Union Jack firmly under their boots.

In December 1921,

the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed by Michael Collins,

and the IRA training grounds were dissolved.

But the treaty partitioned the island

into the largely Protestant north

and the predominantly Catholic south,

which would be named the Irish Free State.

Its status was somewhere between a province of the British Empire

and an independent republic.

Collins knew this was a compromise

many of his comrades wouldn't abide,

and reportedly said,

"I may have just signed my actual death warrant."

This prophecy came true just months later,

as the IRA split in two,

and he was assassinated by anti-treaty forces.

Ireland was plunged into a terrible civil war.

Brother against brother.

After that, the fledgling Irish state needed money,

so they were selling off lands

belonging to these big houses all across Ireland.

And Duckett's Grove was no different.

The mansion was sold and its contents auctioned off.

Stripped of its original grandeur,

it then suffered further humiliation

when it was consumed by fire.

I believe the cause of the fire

was financial, for the insurance or taxes.

Because the bigger the house,

the more taxes people had to pay.

And if a house didn't have a roof, you didn't pay taxes.

But this magnificent house was left in ruins

in 1933.

Many big houses in Ireland remain derelict.

But the work of volunteers, like Danny,

has opened Duckett's Grove up to the public.

The building is wonderful,

but it's the story behind the building,

it's the people that truly bring it to life.

The role of the women's army

is becoming more widely acknowledged,

but the full scope of their activities may never be known.

As they grew older,

the women who had participated in revolutionary activities

were very secretive and silent about their role.

So, sadly, because no one documented what women did,

'cause of patriarchy,

we'll probably never know the full extent of their role in the revolution.

In a secluded region of western Spain,

a peninsula juts out over a vast, shimmering lake.

We're about 180 miles west of Madrid.

It's a beautiful area, a glorious green landscape.

It's picturesque, it's peaceful.

It's like something out of a fairy tale.

Except that there's not a single soul to be seen.

This imposing ghost town

displays all the hallmarks of an ancient stronghold.

The whole town is protected by this high stone wall,

and it's even got its own, kind of, castle tower near the gates, guarding it.

Within the walls, the town is laid out around

a large central plaza,

which is bounded by grand townhouses and civic buildings.

You can imagine that this place was once bustling with life,

but not anymore.

It's a classic frozen-in-time scenario.

Everyone just up and vanished.

There's general decay.

But no big, obvious clue

as to what caused this abandonment.

Not many people are left

to keep alive the story of what happened here.

But sisters, Vicenta and Rosario, are some of the last,

and recall a vibrant community.

We're in the town square.

We used to come here to dance at the fiestas.

And as children, we used to come here to play.

The square has been a focal point since medieval times,

when the town adopted its name.

Granadilla.

The walls went up in the 12th century.

A couple of 100 years later, the imposing castle was added.

By the 20th century,

this town was home to over 1000 inhabitants.

It had evolved over more than a millennium,

into a bustling community with 300 family homes.

Oh, what a thrill to see my house.

How exciting!

Though she was young,

Vicenta still fondly recalls family life

in her now ruined home.

You entered a courtyard,

and on the right, there was a kitchen with a small fireplace.

We would sit by the fire,

and my mother would tell us stories at night.

Life here was rooted in agriculture.

My father had three farms,

and he had 25 olive trees.

We picked the olives, and we took them to the mill.

And then, we also had some chickens. We had eggs.

We had a little donkey,

and we would go to the river to fetch water.

But in 1955,

Vicenta's childhood was shattered.

This ancient town

was about to have the life sucked out of it.

2 In the 1950s, sisters Vicenta and Rosario

enjoyed an idyllic childhood

in the Spanish town of Granadilla.

But their home was about to be stolen away,

thanks to a dictator who came to prominence in the 1930s.

The Civil war was brutal,

a bloody and violent conflict

that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.

General Francisco Franco,

aided by his fascist allies, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini,

emerged as leader in 1939.

But the country had torn itself apart.

Poverty, poor housing, disease,

drought, and famine, were rife.

The challenges that Spain faced

must have seemed insurmountable.

Essentially, Franco needed

to turn around the battle-scarred country's fortunes.

So, one of the approaches that General Franco took

was to back these vast civil engineering projects.

Central to this plan, was advances in irrigation.

Over 600 dams were built between 1939 and 1975.

This was construction on an immense scale.

The largest of these hydroelectric dams

was to be in the Alagon river,

just 24 miles from Granadilla.

In 1955,

officials declared the town a flood zone,

and ordered its inhabitants to evacuate.

When they told us we had to leave,

people were very upset.

And where could we go?

We had never left the village.

Some began leaving.

But to force the remainder out,

the government declared that the land,

including the town and the farms,

would become state property,

and insisted that not even a chair be left behind.

When they forced us to leave,

of course, they compensated us,

but they paid us very little.

And my father, as he had three young daughters,

they didn't give him a house

because the girls couldn't work in the fields.

So, he was left with nothing.

Can you imagine what that must have felt like?

Just to be told to get up and leave

what had been your family's home for generations?

It must have been absolutely devastating.

The situation here was far from unique.

The same approach was being taken to towns and villages

right across Spain,

to make way for these grand infrastructure projects.

In 1963, the dam was complete,

and the floodgates opened on Granadilla.

Well, at first it was flooded little by little.

It flooded the land underneath.

And those that had sheep and cattle

found that they had all drowned.

It completely altered the surrounding landscape.

These roads that used to lead into this town, kind of,

slipped beneath the rising tide.

And the bridge was covered.

The oil mill was covered by water.

The wheat mill was covered, too.

But there would be a cruel twist to this tale.

The rising waters turned the hill, on which the town sat,

into a kind of peninsula.

But that's as high as the water got.

The town was completely cut off.

It was surrounded.

But the town itself never actually flooded.

This was the plan all along,

and engineers would have known that the town wouldn't flood.

In the end, it was either bureaucratic blunder

or bureaucratic deception.

Either way, for the people there,

what happened was unforgivable.

People took it very badly.

We're a bit calmer now,

but there's still a lot of anger

because we had to leave our village.

The key question here is

is why hasn't anyone come back?

We asked for the houses to be given back to us,

but of course, as there was no support, it was just left there.

In order to prevent the residents

from ever returning to Granadilla,

the flood zone status is still in effect,

ensuring no one can live here permanently.

The town is now a tourist site,

and a monument to the many communities across Spain

that suffered a similar fate

at the hands of the dictatorship.