As I was trying to get everyone fed and out the door to school this morning, I looked out the window to see a large group marching up the sidewalk next to our house.
Many were carrying a flag that I didn’t recognize, so I looked it up.
Turns out it is the flag of the Second Spanish Republic. That didn’t really anything to me, so I looked into it more deeply. Back in 1931 Spanish voted out the monarchy and voted in a Republic (the second Spanish Republic). This Republican government took over from the monarchy for a short time, until Franco tried to stage a military coup in 1936. He thought it could be a quick change of power, but it turned into a very bloody and tragic 3 year civil war, the Spanish Civil war. Andalucía was primarily a Republican stronghold during the war and the City of Málaga, a “Republican” city on the southern coast of Andalucia, was soon targeted by the Nationalist forces and the fascist regimes of Germany and Italy. The city was attacked by land, air, and sea. Troops infiltrated Málaga with guns and tanks, while Italian and German aerial and marine forces bombed and burned the city.
Due to its geographical location along the southern coast of the Mediterranean Sea and its mountainous, inland boundaries, it was very difficult for the people of Málaga to escape the attacks, therefore, an estimated 15,000–50,000 civilians, primarily the elderly, women, and children, fled on foot towards the city of Almería , nearly 125 miles away. Sadly, as they fled, the Nationalist forces massacred many on the road (at least 3000 people).
This Málaga massacre is not widely known due to the fact that people were not allowed to speak of it under Franco. The bombing of Guernica, a town in the Basque región of northern Spain, by the Nationalists, Germans and Italians is much widely known thanks to Picasso’s painting “Guernica” that he shared in Paris, thus educating the world.
Now, the Málaga massacre is memorialized every year on February 7th, in Torre Del Mar, which is about half way in between Málaga and Almería, and right outside our back door. I had noticed signs commemorating the memorial, but hadn’t understood what it was about before today.
Adrift in Andalucía 