Paw print of a dog, also an anti-Fascist, who first heard the bombers

Signature of the Republican air raid wardens

The air raid shelter of Placeta Macià, Sant Adrià de Besòs

The air raid shelter (refugi antiaeri) in Placeta Macià, Sant Adrià de Besòs, Barcelona, provides an insight to what life was like for ordinary, working class, people during the Spanish Civil War, 1936-39.

Many thousands of visitors go to Barcelona each year but an increasing number of them are starting to go off the beaten track of the Rambla and the Gaudi buildings to explore some of the lest ‘touristy’ aspects of the city.

Of the hoards who walk down the bustling Rambla some might have read George Orwell’s depiction of the Spanish Civil War in his book Homage to Catalonia. Standing outside Café Moka they might imagine what it was like in the stand-off between two armies, on the same side, on the brink of their own ‘civil war’, occasionally taking pot shots at one another.

Orwell had the luxury, the wealth and the opportunity to get out of the country before Hitler and Mussolini’s aircraft, happily brought in on the side of the rebel Franco, started to regularly bombard this Republican city, using a strategy taken to an even higher level a few years later. That was the strategy of terrorising and punishing the civilian population with mass bombing and the destruction of their cities, as was seen in Warsaw, Liverpool and Leningrad, amongst many others.

As in those other cities the people of Barcelona didn’t just sit and wait for what was to rain down on them. If they could not fight at the front then they would construct shelters to protect themselves from the bombs and deny the enemy the satisfaction of their acquiescence and defeat. This form of passive resistance was evident in Barcelona and many other Catalan towns and cities.

In the intervening years, since the end of the war in 1939, many of these air raid shelters have been bulldozed both to eliminate any popular memory of resistance and then later as the country started to develop and modernise after Franco’s death in 1975. However, since 2007, following a decision of the Generalitat (the Catalan government), much of what does remain is coming to light and is being made accessible to both local people and any visitors with an interest in an important and significant struggle in the middle years of the 20^th century.

Those facets of war that might have been hidden are now being visited by an increasing number of people. In their visits they are offered the opportunity to consider the war in a different way from that presented on the big screen. This representation has evolved over the years from the morale boosting antics of Errol Flynn through the gung-ho approach of John Wayne to the more poignant aspect of war as depicted in Saving Private Ryan.

In Catalonia this unveiling of the past is part of a much bigger project, the first in Spain but part of a much wider, in fact worldwide, scheme called Democratic Memory. Of the more than 70 sites already on the list in Catalonia here I just want to talk about one of them, located in the working class district of Sant Adrià de Besòs, (easily reached via Metro L2 from the central cultural highlights of Barcelona), the air raid shelter in Placeta Macià.

This is an impressive construction in its own right, especially taking into consideration the conditions under which it was built, and is the only one of the seven that originally existed in the district to have survived into the 21^st century. Constructed in the shape of a rhomboid it has a central corridor with alcoves on either side and was built, in 1938, to provide shelter for up to 500 local people.

Although it is underground the aim of the cleaning and restoration has been to make it as accessible as possible. First, it is free to enter. ‘Why should those who built it, and their children and grandchildren, now be charged to visit it – 70 years after its construction,’ says Jordi Vilalta, the enthusiastic coordinator for the shelter. He is based in the Museu d’Història de la Immagració de Catalunya (itself one of the 71 sites) which is situated a short distance away on the opposite side of the River Besòs.

One of the aims of the project is to involve children in a conversation with the past of their families and so school visits are organised where those who were themselves school children in 1938 tell of their memories, experiences, fears and daily life in general during the relatively short, but incredibly intense, life of the shelter.

‘We have found it very difficult to find actual photos of people in the shelter’, continues Jordi, ‘but what we do have are some drawings made by children at the time. What we find fascinating is the fact that, apart from the ‘advances’ in aircraft and technology, these images are almost the same as those produced by children in the Palestinian city of Jenin in 2002.’

To encourage the involvement of the young in this small and intimate museum the visitors are encouraged to touch the exhibits and to try to understand the idea of destruction but without any images of death.

A particularly interesting story is that of the dogs that acted as virtual air raid wardens for the population. They would be able to hear the drone of the bombers coming over the sea, from the Balearic island of Mallorca, long before humans. As Pavlov suggested the dogs associated this noise with the inexplicable (to them) consequence of explosions, fire, noise, strange smells and potential death that comes with aerial bombardment.

The people of Sant Adrià suffered on two accounts. Theirs was an industrial area, and so a ‘legitimate’ target in times of war, but they were also implacable adversaries of the fascists and so had to be terrorised.

Visiting the shelter: Open the last Sunday of each month, though Jordi can be contacted, via email jvilalta.pmi@gmail.com or on +34 609 033 867, to arrange visits at other times.

For more on Memoria Democratic see:

Rosanes – a military airfield during the Spanish Civil War

More on Catalunya/Catalonia

Rosanes airfield, La Garriga, Catalonia

More on Catalunya/Catalonia

Rosanes – a military airfield during the Spanish Civil War

Memorial Democratic, a programme to spread information about the history of the Spanish Civil War, tells the story of the small Republican airfield of Rosanes, just outside La Garriga in the hills just to the north of Barcelona, Catalonia.

I’ve said that it’s possible to walk in this part of Catalonia during the month of August but I would still not recommend doing what I did a few days ago which was to visit the site of one of the Republican airfields during the Spanish Civil War at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Being now farm land there is absolutely no respite from the sun as Catalonia, as well as much of the rest of Spain, is going through a heat wave.

But for anyone interested in that defining period of European history a visit is worthwhile.

Rosanes is the name of a large farm a couple of kilometres to the south of La Garriga, a town which grew up at the end of the 19^th and the beginning of the 20^th centuries as a favoured place for the Barcelona rich to escape the extreme heat of the Mediterranean summer.

There’s not a great deal left of the complex that existed for a short, but intense, period during 1937-38 but there’s enough to get a feel for what it was like when the Republican air force tried to stand up against the might of the German Luftwaffe and the Italian Regia Aeronautica. But this quiet place, now returned to use as farm land and a small golf course, played a significant part in some of the campaigns of the Civil War as well as playing its part in the defence of Barcelona, only just over 30 kilometres away.

The reason for the airfield being there was really one of chance. A rich Argentinian businessman, with a passion for flying, constructed a landing strip, together with a hangar, a control tower and a house which were all requisitioned by the Republic when hostilities began.

As the place developed from a private civilian airfield to a military centre all the operational and accommodation facilities were spread over a large area to avoid concentration of resources in a small place which would have had disastrous consequences if there had been a lucky strike by the fascist bombers. All its working life the airfield was under threat of aerial bombardment and three, out of a total of 7, of the still existing structures are air raid shelters.

At two locations in the area there are information points which provide a fairly comprehensive introduction to the activities that took place in those years. With sketches etched into stainless steel any visitor can come away knowing a lot more about what the place looked like and how the airfield functioned as an efficient war machine.

This includes a description of the aircraft that the Republicans used at Rosanes. These were all Polikarpov aircraft provided by the Soviet Union, the most famous of these being the Natasha, a light bomber and the plane around which the aerodrome was built. It was after this squadron was virtually wiped out on returning from a raid on the 24^th December 1938, due to a mistake and consequent lack of fighter support, that Rosanes began to lose its importance.

The information boards also give an indication of the position of Rosanes in the evolution of the Republican defensive front. Much of what the Republican forces built was in response to a concerted attack that had been planned over many months. What has to be remembered is that it was the fascists who were the rebels, rising up against the legitimate government of the Second Republic, who had planned their attack with the overwhelming support of the war machines of Germany and Italy. Taking into account this imbalance of forces it’s surprising that Spain was able to hold out for three years. Poland and France didn’t last a fraction of that time.

The three principal buildings of the pre-war complex still exist but can only normally be seen from afar, as they are now back in private hands. These are the buildings constructed for the Argentinian businessman and are the hangar, the control tower and the house built close by which became a command centre.

The other remaining structures are the air raid shelters. The two smaller ones have gates across the entrances but a little bit of limbo dancing will mean that you can get a view of the interior and this is useful to get an idea of how small they were but still providing the necessary protection against attack.

The third shelter, by far the largest as it was constructed close to the biggest concentration of personnel, can only be seen on one of the organised visits. This is next to Can Sorgues, where there are also the remains of the camp dinning room as well as a sentry box, looking in a very good condition for something that is supposed to be from the 1930s.

But apart from the structures that can be seen/visited perhaps the main thing to be gained from a visit to Rosanes is the realisation of how small things were in those days, how makeshift war was in the mid 1930s and how hit and miss the whole matter of warfare was at that time. Matters moved drastically during the ‘big’ war of 1939-45 (in which Spain did not take part) and so different from the high-tech warfare of today in Iraq, Afghanistan and …. Iran?

A guided tour of Rosanes takes place the second Sunday of every month, meeting at the Rosanes farmhouse at 11.00. In July and August, when it’s much hotter, the visit takes place at 18.00, the one in August being on bicycles. It costs €5. For more information call 93 113 70 31, or email info@visitlagarriga.cat. For some pictures of the time go to www.aviacioiguerra.cat, although this is only in Catalan.