Visit this wonderful museum which was a beacon of hope for expectant mothers exiled during the Retirada.
If he had not left behind him a few drawings of his horrific stay in the French concentration camps, Civil War refugee Josep Bartoli (1910-1995) would have remained just another anonymous fighter amongst thousands who sacrificed their lives in the name of freedom. Visit the exhibition at the Memorial de Rivesaltes
A day out in the High Vallespir is always a pleasure.
Our own little bit of horror and inhumanity here in the P-O. Never forget lest it happen again.
Following our recent articles on la Retirada, a P-O Life reader very kindly contacted us with photos and memories of a hike that they undertook back in 2017.
You would think that the shameful, over crowded camps on the P-O beaches would be unlikely places for art to flourish….READ ON
Josep is a 74-minute animated film inspired by the life and work of Josep Bartolí, anti-Franco fighter and cartoonist, exiled in France during the Retirada.
In late January/early February 1939 nearly half a million Spanish civilians and soldiers fled to France. The word Retirada (Spanish for Retreat) was adopted by historians to signify this exodus, which was the biggest single influx of refugees ever known in France.
1939 was a difficult year for France. Not only did it experience the indignity of an invasion on its North East border from Hitler’s hordes late in the year, the country suffered a very different incursion in its far South-West in the early months of the year.
la Jonquera Exile Memorial Museum (MUME), an immaculately kept and poignant reminder of the Retirada, a place for ‘memory, history and critical reflexion’.
