| Abstract | Scholars have implicitly accepted the regime's discourse, whereby widows, orphans and the needy had a place in the Francoist "New State" insofar as it decreed specific measures to relieve the suffering caused by harsh living conditions in the 1940s.2 Although it was a far from adequate response to the needs of the disadvantaged, the Francoist welfare apparatus has been seen as the acceptable face of a bloody regime, and the common perception among Spaniards is that it is one of the areas where the dictatorship enjoyed a measure of consensus. The narratives elaborated around the experience of defeat and repression are basically twofold: the speakers present themselves as victims of Franco's politics of revenge or as heroes of the anti-Franco resistance.\n The ruling elite failed to establish hegemony over the inmates, who were able to keep alive their parents' memory and identify with their families' political background rather than with the regime's principles.
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