The families of the victims of the Madrid train bombings commemorated the fifth anniversary of Europe’s worst Islamic terror attack, which killed 191 people and injured 1,800. Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero laid flowers at trees in the Forest of Remembrance – a hill specially landscaped with trees for each of the victims.
Relatives and victims also gathered for a flower-laying ceremony at a monument built close to the city’s Atocha train station and other sites. Minutes of silence were also held across the country.
During the first anniversary of the attacks, traffic came to a standstill, and people poured out of office buildings to observe five minutes of silence; but as the years have gone by, commemoration of the terrorist attacks have drawn less attention.
The noting of the anniversary of this major attack by Islamic radicals reminds community members that such tragedies are will not be forgotten, and are woven into national memory. Additionally however, while commemoration of terror anniversaries continues, highlights that such ceremonies of remembrance lessens over time, and perhaps additional questions into why such commemorations become less and less deems additional research into the different ways the Spanish community internalizes such events over time.
