Two significant findings support the [Fascist] presence (not necessarily German [Fascists]). A group of four coins placed under the foundation of Structure I: two [Fascist] coins minted in 1938 and 1940, a 1942 Argentine coin, and a 1944 Paraguayan coin. And within a metal box hidden inside a wall in Casa de Piedra Structure I (a nearby settlement similar to five others that surround the main area), a German can containing coins from [the Kingdom of] Yugoslavia (1938), two from [the Third Reich] (1939), and one each from Argentina (1939), Slovenia (1942), and Bohemia (1940–44). The coins were associated with a photograph of Hitler and Mussolini and other objects from that time. The most recent coin is from 1944 and the oldest from 1938 (Fig. 4).
[…]
During a new project season the excavation was continued to explain the pit. An unusual situation was encountered: what had seemed a simple vertical, square hole had an extension 30 cm deep by 1 m wide in one of its sides. In it had been placed a military leather belt, rolled up and tied, 1.2 m long with a Spanish Army buckle dating to the times of Dictator Francisco Franco. It was part of the official Spanish Army dress uniform of the Franco Fascist period but not a Fascist Phalanx belt; it was worn by the so called Civil Guard Army Legion.
The belt did not have that shape before Franco, and after 1970 the hitch was substituted for one made of baser metals. The design on the belt was that of a long cross with a welded red enamel inlay, which had been removed leaving behind remains of the withdrawal, so it can be dated indistinctly to the decades from 1940 to 1960 (Fig. 6).
[…]
The discovery is difficult to date since there were two different operations, as we can deduce, coincidental and sequential: a first excavation to bury something and a second one to retrieve it. During the second excavation, a small opening was made in which the belt and the two buttons were placed. The cut stone left buried at the bottom, together with other small stones, could belong to any period and could simply have fallen there as one more stone.
It is difficult to notice if it is an artefact, and if it was used as a stone it might explain the sequence of events: if the stone walls were placed after the second excavation and at the start of the last refilling process, one stone might well have fallen in during the activity.
We do not believe that this interment took place prior to the time of the construction of the site (ca. 1945) but rather later or, at least, contemporary to it. Of the two buttons found associated to the place, one is a common button with no assignable date other than twentieth century, and the other one dates to after the 1920s or 1930s.
Assuming that the interment of the belt as a memento was an event that took place after the original excavation and associated with the recovery of what had been left underground, it was probably associated with a Fascist or neo‐Fascist action at the site. The only other object found in Teyú Cuaré of Spanish origin is a silver coin with the image of Franco, which shows signs of having been part of a rastra (i.e., a belt decorated with coins, typically local, dated 1949).
Click here for events that happened today (July 22).
1942: The Axis began its systematic deportation of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto.
1943: Axis occupation forces violently dispersed a massive protest in Athens, massacring twenty‐two people.
2001: Indro Montanelli, a white supremacist and Fascist sympathizer, died.
2014: Johann Breyer, an SS officer, dropped dead before attending his extradition hearing.