Stop 12 – Retreat, explosion and exile

Refugees in Plaça del Gra, in full retreat on their way to exile, 6 February 1939. (Agència Schostal / AMF)

“[…] I flew over the city several times at low altitude […]. There was […] an absolute traffic jam formed by vehicles of all classes and a mixed crowd composed of combatants and civilians.”

Lario Sánchez, J, Habla un aviador de la República (An aviator of the Republic speaks), p 312-3

In the last days of January and early February 1939, Figueres lived in chaos. Waves of thousands of refugees arrived in the city fleeing, sharing the path with a retreating army. They found an overwhelmed city, filled to overflowing, subjected to continuous and powerful bombardments. On 8 February, as the Nationalists entered the city, Republican sappers blew up parts of the castle, causing a large-scale explosion. The result of those days was death and destruction.

In this space we find one of the city’s official shelters, the one in Gra Square. It is a collective underground shelter, with two perpendicular galleries and two stepped accesses on opposite sides. Built with concrete load-bearing walls, brick walls and vault, upper expansion slab and exterior earthwork, it offered formidable protection for about 150 people.