“…perhaps we were all looking for something. Looking back, looking forward or just looking for something that was missing. Drawn to the edge, a strip of wilderness where we could be free to let the answers come, or not, to find a way of accepting life, our life, whatever that was. Were we searching this narrow margin between the land and the sea for another way of being, becoming edgelanders along the way. Stuck between one world and the next. Walking a thin line between tame and wild, lost and found, life and death. At the edge of existence.” – Raynor Winn, The Salt Path (a modern quote that fits in with the narrative ...)
I have been away with Ms M; she is familiar to my regular followers as we have been on several interesting adventures together.
We are family by chance, friends by choice.
Her mother, Marjorie, was a trained nurse & midwife in England. She was touched by the plight of the women & children during the
Spanish Civil War of 1936- 1939 and so she joined the volunteer nurses as a 25 year old & with other volunteers, drove an ambulance across France & on to the battlefields of Spain. She wrote briefly about her experiences & had her paperwork to document her time so we had an idea about the route she followed as a nurse.
It must have been a huge adjustment - the heat, the distances, the lack of facilities, the complexities of a civil war ....
Ms M & I joined a tour exploring the very areas she served in & it was humbling to follow the same path, the realities of war laid out before us. These tincture bottles at the museum in Morata
They attended mainly to those whose villages were decimated & on the battlefield, working out of abandoned buildings along the way. Their funding came from donations & it was in many ways, nursing at its most basic, with limited equipment; their skill & training making the real difference.
What trauma & despair they must have seen daily - no two days the same
The museum in Corbero d'Ebro was very informative - the guide & her translator were excellent. We had an overview talk at the museum before they guided us out in to the old town, along cobbled streets & steep hills, along the route with the church on the hill as our destination.
We stopped at the 5 metal sculpture to the International Brigade before making it to the very imposing church on the hill. The old village around the church was completely decimated in the bombardment & they guided us around the remains, telling the stories which always brings things to life. I find the stories of the people to be an important part of such trips - the humans behind the stats.
The church's roof is long gone, covered now with a protective light material that gave it a welcoming light - some respite from the high 30's heat outside.
A walk down the hill via a different route gave us a fantastic view of the church & town walls around it before we visited the museum. The role of women was well shown there - stamps, education, nursing, fighting, holding the fort in difficult time - they were inspiring in challenging times ...
The nearby battlefield of the bloody battle of d' Ebro showed the realities of war - an abandoned farmhouse which was known to have been used as a field hospital by volunteers was sobering. Marjorie's own account documented that she had been in this very area so we were in no doubt that she would have worked in the same spots where we were.
Visits to the dugouts & trenches on the surrounding hills was interesting & sobering - the lack of running water nearby & the vulnerability on the exposed hills reminded us how close to danger they worked. We crossed over to the battlefield which had seen so much bloodshed & battle.
A nearby memorial, accessed via a trench like entrance, a reminder of lives lost on these battlefields.
When we visited Brunete near Madrid, we heard the account of the loss of the talented German war photographer Gerda Taro . We stood on the hot roadside where she had been taking her final photographs of the Republican retreat when she fell from the running board of a car & was crushed by a tank - she died later of her injuries. It was sobering to have the chaotic war scene explained in detail & to be at the edge of the very road where the war was - a non descript road near a small town, its basic shelters evident in the photo below.
We took our lunch break in the nearby town of Brunete
The pretty square with its sun soaked cafes, fountain & church belies the reality of war that took over the town. However, the church bears battle scars still & some of the group joined our guide in walking the town where fighting had taken place. We opted to visit the cool church at the top of the square with its rose coloured light flooding in, storks nesting on the tower, a haven of calm. It had not been so in the war & I found some coins for Ms M & I to light a candle to her Mum.
Being in a place that Marjorie had almost certainly been in was suddenly emotional - it was as if history reached out of the quietness. We were moved to silence as our candles flickered ...
Our lunch in the square below the church was a time to appreciate life as we live it now ...
The Spanish are proud of the fact that their understanding & pioneering development of blood transfusions which saved many lives.
The Barcelona Transfusion Service was established by the Catalan physician Dr. Frederic Duran Jordà and operated from August 1936 to January 1939, serving both civilian and military populations. Duran’s most important contribution lay in the sophisticated supply of citrated blood. In 2 ½ years of operation the Barcelona Service registered 28,900 donors and supplied 9000 litres of blood or about 27,000 units of about 300 mL.
I have no doubt that the volunteer nurses in the field & in hospitals were trained to assist with blood transfusions, thereby enriching their own knowledge of the processes. This knowledge saved many lives & led the advances after the war.
The impressive Military Museum in Valencia dedicated a space to nursing in the war & it was interesting to see it & to appreciate the history behind the various sides in a complex war.
The visit to the Reina Sofia Museum of Modern Art was a graphic reminder of how events are documented - I had read several accounts of the war (George Orwell, short history etc) but to see the visual interpretations is a bonus. The most famous held there is the massive painting of Guernica by Pablo Picasso. It is 3.49m by 7.76m & depicts the destruction of the town of Guernica
It was an interesting trip - I had only scant knowledge of the Spanish Civil War when I agreed to accompany Ms M, but read several books, made notes, compared & contrasted the two sides to understand the complexities & human side to the war prior to going.
My interest is always who, why, where, what, when? I came away with a better understanding of the complexities on which the modern Spanish society is based. History is always complex, having some small understanding of it is always a bonus.
The Valley of the Fallen, a monumental church, grounds, gardens etc was built by Franco & it is hugely controversial as the bonds between Church (Catholic) & the Franco government was shown rather than a monument to reconcile both sides. It is vast, built at great cost in to the mountain, using labour from prisoners who were used as slave labour to commute their harsh sentences. The vast space is tightly controlled by the church & it left me uneasy ....
Once home, I collated the maps, notes & brochures I had collected along the way. I took photos of names in the various museums & art gallery that I wanted to find out more about & I have been doing that; the benefit of a phone camera that captures details you want to remember. It was a fascinating trip that I was privileged to join Ms M on.
I hope this account has been of interest, leave a comment & thank you for your visit.
Dee 💕🇪🇸
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