Category: History

Spanish refugees crossing the Pyrenees to France. Many would not make it. Those who did faced a very uncertain future.

Republican prisoners forming the dictator’s name. Jaén 1953. Despite improving its international image from the 1960s, the dictatorship would remain chronically violent and murderous to the very end..

Swiss volunteers returning from Spain were treated badly, facing up to 4 years in prison for having broken the militarily penal code which banned Swiss citizens from enlisting in a foreign army. Some 800 Swiss, one of the largest groups, including a few women fought in Spain. Around 170 were killed in the fighting. In…

Almeria 1977. Three generations of women sitting around a SEAT 600, seen in the 1960s as a sign of progress and today an icon of the period. The 600 began in the late 50s as a vehicle for the upper middle-class, but gradually moved down by the 1970s to becoming the car of the working…

Real Madrid was renamed Madrid Football Club in 1931 after the declaration of the 2nd Spanish Republic. The photo shows, I believe, the players lining up for a match at the start of the Civil War. Cristano Ronaldo’s great uncle third on left (not true).

26th June 1937 refugees Basque children being given toys in Watermillock, Bolton, UK. In 1937, during the Spanish civil war, a group of almost 4,000 children were evacuated from Bilbao to England. The children left for Britain on the steamship the Habana on 21st May 1937. Each child had been given a cardboard hexagonal disk…

Samuel Willis, one of the number of African-Americans to die fighting for the Spanish Republic. Born in Philadelphia, 1914, he worked as a communist party organizer, before coming to Spain in 1937 where he served first as a scout and later as a runner in the Canadian Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion. He was reported missing in action…

Old man sheltering from a bomb raid in Madrid metro, 1937. Note poster in the background with the city’s symbol of bear. “The bear of Madrid will destroy fascism”

75 years ago to today on 26 April 1937, the small Basque town of Guernika was destroyed by the Nazi Condor Legion. The bombing has come to symbolise the evils of war. 75 years ago to today on 26 April 1937, the small Basque town of Guernika was destroyed by the Nazi Condor Legion. The…

Excellent obituary of Manual Fraga in here The Guardain by Micheal Euede, author of one my favourite books on Barcelona. …Differing evaluations of Fraga at his death reflect the deep division in Spanish society. The right exalts him as the statesman who reformed Francoism, co-drafted the 1978 constitution and founded a conservative party that eventually,…