Civilian Violence and the Memory of Bombing: Evidence from Catalan Museums

The beginning of the twenty-first century in Spain has seen renewed interest in the Civil War and especially on the excavation of mass graves related to Franco’s repression; there are popular books that now reference the “Spanish Holocaust” and the “genocide” carried out by the Franco regime during the civil war and after its victory. Much of the violence civilians experienced in the Civil War came from the air, as German, Italian and Spanish Nationalist air forces were an essential part of the military campaigns. This paper will examine how aerial bombing and the impact they had on civilians are portrayed in contemporary civil war spaces in Catalonia, Spain. The paper focuses on multiple sites that are meant to commemorate the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939, including the destroyed town of Corbrera d’Ebre in southern Catalonia, the Refugi 307 site in Barcelona and other such spaces across the region.