Let’s discover Valencia during the Civil War and the post-war period
Valencia is a city full of history. Its streets are full of symbols, anecdotes and emblematic places that take us back in time. In today’s blog, we will discover the Valencia of the Civil War and the post-war period, reflected in two representative buildings of the capital of the Turia.
First of all, we will talk about the air-raid shelter of the Town Hall, one of the most famous and visited in the whole town. Right in Arquebisbe Mayoral street, located behind the Town Hall, we find the entrance to this important monument, which was used to hide 700 children since it was built -in 1938- by the architect Jose Luis Testor.
Within its blue and white walls, the children spent the day taking classes, playing and, of course, protecting their lives from the deadly bombardments.
But did you know that in Valencia there were more than 330 similar shelters? Incredible, but true.
We remind that the Civil War began in 1936 and ended in 1939, almost a century ago. During these turbulent years, Valencia suffered a large number of bombings, as Spain was the training ground for this new method of destruction, which was known as “the whimsical art of mass murder”. What a name!
For this reason, the construction of shelters to protect the population became a priority. In fact, it is known that many of the shelters were financed with money from local residents and businesses, who had to give part of their income each month in order to keep the shelters in operation.
After the end of the war, most of these facilities were closed down. Fortunately, they were no longer needed. However, in 2016, the Arquebisbe Mayoral shelter reopened its doors so that new generations could get to know a key period in the city of Valencia. The exhibition is designed to immerse visitors fully in the atmosphere of the place and, as they walk through its corridors and rooms, they come into contact with a reality that now seems so distant, without being so. The photographs, documents and testimonies of the survivors will make you discover a Valencia very different from the one you are used to.
A few metres away, you’ll also find the shelter in Calle Serranos and, a little further on, the old Bombas Gens factory. Both spaces offer valuable information about one of the darkest moments in our history. If you want to understand Valencian culture and idiosyncrasy, you can’t miss the most interesting air-raid shelters in the city.
And if you want to know more, we recommend you visit the exhibition Archaeology of Memory: The Graves of Paterna, at the Valencian Museum of Ethnology. Here you can know more about the years after the war, when Franco’s regime was the main political and social force.
You may be wondering what Francoism is. Well, it is one of the military dictatorships in Spain’s contemporary history that has had the greatest influence on today’s society. This fascist regime, headed by Francisco Franco Bahamonde, began at the end of the war and lasted until 1978, when it was finally dismantled.
The exhibition, centred on the Paterna graves, narrates – through archaeological discoveries – the genocidal practices that were carried out during the dictatorship. Numerous cases have been documented of political dissidents who, because they were against Francisco Franco, were arrested, murdered and subsequently buried in mass graves. The cemetery of Paterna, a town and municipality in the Valencian Community, was one of the places chosen to carry out this injustice, and is the focus of the research by the archaeologists who initiated the project.
Thanks to this initiative, it is now possible to give voice to those who were silenced during Franco’s regime and to listen to the testimonies of those who lost a loved one. The exhibition is, without a doubt, not only a sample of the possibilities that archaeology offers us in the social field, but also a reminder of how far human beings can go to impose their ideas.
Come and visit this piece of our history until 5 May 2024, at the Valencian Museum of Ethnology in Corona Street, and discover – as we did – the Valencia of the Civil War and the post-war period.
We hope you liked today’s topic and we invite you to read our next Blog…
