A day out in the High Vallespir is always a pleasure.
Only fragments survive to witness the passage of more than 60,000 people interned in the Camp of Rivesaltes between 1942 and 1966.
From their small grocery shop in Perpignan, the 3 courageous Sabaté women, joined the fight against fascism.
Our own little bit of horror and inhumanity here in the P-O. Never forget lest it happen again.
la Jonquera Exile Memorial Museum (MUME), an immaculately kept and poignant reminder of the Retirada, a place for ‘memory, history and critical reflexion’.
The Retirada. Nearly half a million Spanish civilians and soldiers fled to France. The P-O authorities were unprepared and hostile.
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.
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
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.
During the Retirada, Spanish Republicans fleeing the Franco regime poured over the border into the P-O. But it wasn’t just people, many important pieces of artwork joined the exodus.