Madrid, Spain ? In rail stations, city streets and in the “Forest of the Absent” — a grove of olive and cypress trees planted to remember the dead — Spaniards fell silent for a five-minute vigil Friday on the anniversary of the Madrid train bombings, a paroxysm of violence that killed 191 people as suspected al-Qaida militants devastated a country that had been their haven.

King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia led government leaders and visiting dignitaries at the main memorial event — a vigil inaugurating the 192 trees, one for each person killed on the rush-hour commuter trains and a policeman who died when suspects seeking to avoid arrest blew themselves up.

“Who will give me back my will to live, which died here a year ago?” read a letter stuck to a wall at El Pozo, hardest-hit of the four rail stations targeted by backpack bombs filled with dynamite and shrapnel. It was signed by a woman who identified herself as Susana, among those wounded in Spain’s worst terrorist attack.

The monarchs placed a wreath of white and purple chysanthemums in Madrid’s main park at the edge of the grove. They bowed their heads and listened to the mournful strains of a cello piece composed by Pablo Casals.

Around the country, Spaniards stopped what they were doing and poured into the streets for five minutes of quiet remembrance. Earlier, as dawn broke, hundreds of church bells in Madrid rang out at 7:37 a.m. — one year to the minute after the first of the 10 rapid-fire blasts.

The attack, which wounded more than 1,500 people, shocked Spain into rethinking the way it deals with Islamic extremism and prompted Muslims in Spain to issue a fatwa, or Islamic edict, declaring Osama bin Laden an apostate unworthy of his faith.

At El Pozo, an emergency medical worker who had collected bodies and attended to the dying returned Friday wearing his yellow jumpsuit uniform to pay his respects.

A commuter train approaches in the background as a rose left to commemorate the victims of the March 11 train bombings is seen at Madrid's Atocha train station, Friday. Madrid marked the first anniversary of the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people and injured more than 1500 in what was Spain's worst terrorist attack.

“I will never forget the image of what happened here,” said the 42-year-old worker, who identified himself only as Paco. “I still remember the smell of gunpowder. Finding pieces of bodies on the platform. The image of a boy’s head on a bench.”

Unlike the unity that Sept. 11 triggered among Americans, March 11 — 2 1/2 years to the day after the attacks on New York and Washington — caused deep, bitter divisions among Spain’s parties and their supporters.

Aznar’s Popular Party says the Socialists won only because of what it calls a surgical strike against his pro-U.S. government, and dismissed the new administration as all but lacking a mandate. Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has repeatedly accused Aznar and company of lying to save the election by accusing ETA of the attack even as evidence of an Islamic link mounted.

The 22 people jailed over the bombings face preliminary charges of terrorism or mass murder. Fifty-two detainees have been released but are still considered suspects. A trial is not expected until late this year at the earliest.