In the cemetery in Palma is a mausoleum that features a column which is tall enough that it can be seen from outside the cemetery. The Italian government, via the consulate in Palma, is billed for the annual maintenance of this monument. The town hall's funerary company, EFM, charges 449.11 euros.
Some sources suggest that 66 Italians were buried in the cemetery. But according to EFM, seventeen were buried between 1937 and 1940 and an eighteenth in May 1962. The mausoleum is on the Vía de los Mártires in the cemetery. Built in Mussolini's Italy and then transported to Mallorca, it honours Italian 'martyrs' of the Spanish Civil War.
Mallorca was of great strategic importance during the war, not least because of the alliance between Mussolini and Franco against the Republican government. Italian planes flew from Mallorca and bombed the civil population in Barcelona. The martyrs buried at the mausoleum were mainly airmen whose planes were shot down by Republican anti-aircraft fire.
The mausoleum is listed in the inventory of items contrary to democratic memory, as established by the Balearic Law of Democratic Memory. Being listed means that whatever this item may be (street names are the most common), it must be removed. The government has asked the Spanish government's delegate in the Balearics, Aina Calvo, to process a request that the Italian embassy in Madrid complies with this regulation. By way of reinforcement, it is expected that the mausoleum will also be listed in a state census of items contrary to democratic memory; this follows the recent passing of a national law similar in scope to that of the Balearics.
Jesús Jurado, the regional government's secretary of democratic memory, says that the mausoleum is included in the census of fascist symbols in Palma. "We do not object to the burial of people who died in the war. But in this case it is a symbol with clear fascist connotations, crowned by a large bronze eagle. The Italian state, which to this day continues to pay for it, should remove the bronze statue and do with it what it deems necessary."