The divisions caused by the Spanish Civil War, and the decades of dictatorship it ushered in, ending only with Franco’s death in November 1975, continue to ripple through Spain. The ceremony here took place only after a unique and controversial push by Catalan lawmakers, many of whom now want to secede from Spain. The rest of the archive, which some compare to Communist East Germany’s Stasi files, remains in state hands.

The Spanish archive was created by a special unit designated to seize documents that could eventually help identify and punish Franco’s enemies as his troops started to push back their Republican opponents. The unit stored any confiscated material in a building in Salamanca, a university town that Franco turned into his military headquarters and for which the files are named.

Several of those who got documents back expressed disbelief at finally retrieving family belongings, as well as sadness and frustration that it had taken so long.

“It is shameful that personal belongings were taken away by Franco as if they were part of a war booty — and it is just as shameful that we’re still struggling to recover such belongings, four decades after Spain returned to democracy,” Isabel Casanovas Calvet said.

She received 17 books that belonged to her grandfather Joan Casanovas, who was the president of the Parliament of Catalonia when the civil war broke out. He died in exile in France in 1942, three years after Franco’s victory.