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.
You would think that the shameful, over crowded camps on the P-O beaches would be unlikely places for art to flourish….READ ON
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.
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.
Follow in the footsteps of the Retirada on this day out through Las Illas, La Vajol and along the Chemin de l’Exil.
Michel Torrent (code name Milor René Jules) fled Saint Malo under German occupation and found refuge for himself and his family with his grandparents in Perpignan.
Take a walk in Argelès in the footsteps of the Retirada on the ’circuit de la Mémoire’. to mark the 85th anniversary of the opening of the camp on the beach.
A “Lest we Forget” drive around the Pyrenees Orientales can be the moment to visit or revisit some of the villages and enjoy the autumn colours whilst taking in some of the fascinating War and anti war Memorials.
The Morhange network was a French resistance network led by Marcel Taillandier, who took extreme risks to inform and protect the Resistance Movement.