Today is the third anniversary of the terrorist attacks in Madrid, which took the lives of 191 people and wounded more than 1,800 people who were on a morning train going about their lives on March 11, 2004, when a series of bombs went off at Atocha rail station in central Madrid.
King Juan Carlos, Queen Sofia, Prince Felipe and Princess Letizia attended a memorial service where a towering 10-storey glass cylinder etched with grief-stricken condolences and messages were left at the time for the victims. (In 2005, on the first anniversary of the attack, a Forest of Remembrance was unveiled, which bears a grove of olive and cypress trees in a park in Madrid.)
King Juan Carlos, Queen Sofia, Prince Felipe and Princess Letizia attended a memorial service where a towering 10-storey glass cylinder etched with grief-stricken condolences and messages were left at the time for the victims. (In 2005, on the first anniversary of the attack, a Forest of Remembrance was unveiled, which bears a grove of olive and cypress trees in a park in Madrid.)
Me, being the nosey person that I am decided to check out your blog and I'm glad I did!
I came across this Madrid memorial as I was scrolling down and I am very pleased to see it. I'm not sure whether you had planned to do it anyway or whether you decided to do it after I'd posted on the forums, but I just want to say thank you! Thanks for making people aware of what happened that day.
Well I'll be checking your blog often from now on!
Sofia x
Hi Sofia,
Truthfully, it was a bit of both. Watching royalty, I knew that the Spanish royals would do something to commemorate the day, but then reading your story about your uncle and your family's plans and then seeing the actual memorial with all the names and the condolences in all the other languages, it really touched me. It made me realize that the bombings in Madrid wasn't strictly a Spanish tragedy or loss, but an international one, just as the attacks in New York City and London were international attacks and not American or British attacks.
I'm one who doesn't like to remember deaths but birthdays. And I think it's more important to remember the lives lost than those who committed such an attrocious crime against humanity.
The one picture of the interior of the cylinder is one of my favourites. There is something about it that hits my heart everytime I see it, no matter how many times I see it. I don't know the people mentioned in it nor can I understand all the comments, but I know enough to know that the names are for someone's son or daughter, someone's sister or brother, someone's husband or wife, someone's mom or dad, someone's friend. And that the words are of condolence. And that's enough for me to be affected by it.
Thank you for sharing your story at TRR Sofia.
Alex