Candido Lope is homeless and living on the streets of Madrid. He is the son of Spain’s last executioner, Antonio Lopez Sierra.
One of the most tragic executions his father performed was of anarchist Salvador Puig Antich on March 2, 1974.
“My father was a tough old dog. But every time he had to execute someone he would get drunk first, believe me.”
His son recalls that, earlier in life, his father had worked as a street sweeper in Germany, feigning syphilis to avoid having to pay his own way back to Spain. Since there was no such thing as an “apprenticeship” to become an executioner, he had been taught the secrets of the trade by an Andalusian executioner who wrote poetry, attended mass daily and envied his victims for their passing into eternity.
“Would you have taken over your father’s job?”
“Yes, and my hands would not have trembled. I prepared for it from a young age.”
Source: El Pais Semanal (Spain) 28.11.2011
