Historia de Barcelona

Año: 1938

  • Aurora boreal vista desde Tibidabo, confusión en el frente de Aragón

    The 1938 aurora borealis

    The «aurora borealis» is a luminescent meteor, a phenomenon that frequently happens in areas close to the North Pole and which can also be seen in rather exceptional circumstances in regions of Central Europe. So the aurora borealis that could quite clearly be seen from the Pyrenees, and even from the top of the Tibidabo hill in Barcelona, on the 25th of January 1938, was an absolutely unusual occurrence. It was in fact a unique experience. There are no known accounts of any other event of that kind at such meridional latitudes.

    Furthermore, the phenomenon took place in the midst of war, thus causing terrible confusion and shock among the soldiers who were fighting on the Aragonese front. (…)

  • Cuatro días de nevada

    Empezó el 15 de febrero, con tormenta y una acumulación de 13 centímetros. Siguió al día siguiente aunque más ligeramente y los dos días siguientes también nevó pero poco.

  • Edwin Rolfe: los bombardeos de principios de marzo

    [March 10, 1938, carta a su mujer, Mary]

    Less than a week ago there were nine air bombardments over the city in a period of 25 or 26 hours. They come at night these days, when it’s hard to sight them. In the evening mostly – and the first thing you hear is the muffled sound of an explosion, maybe two or three – the first bombs. Then the much sharper crack of anti-air guns is heard, and the worst sound of all, the warning signal begins to screech. If you go downstairs to the entrance of the house, which most of us do, you see the flares in the sky, and the momentary splotches of light; and the sky is criss-crossed with light beams trying to locate the bombers. And then the central power control shuts off all the light in the city, and we’re in complete darkness… [Aerial] bombardment is a little more terrifying [than the artillery barrages he had experienced in Madrid]… You never know where they are and in which direction they’re going. And even the tougher-minded remember what a building looks like after a 400-pound bomb has struck. You have to be calm about it; and you remember that there are 1,600,000 people in this refugee-swollen city, and that it will take more bombs than the fascists have to even make a dent in a city as large as this and on a population as big. But young women and old women can’t take it calmly; they cry in a soft, low, terribly-scared sort of whimper. Sometimes the kids cry too, but not so often; they generally play around with each other as if there’s nothing going on, and if their mothers let them, they go out to watch the searchlights in the sky.

  • Edwin Rolfe: los bombardeos del 16 de marzo

    A week later [Edwin] Rolfe writes (without mailing) a long letter to Leo about another series of raids. Given the risk of being in a collapsing building, the people where Rolfe is living dig a makeshift trench in the yard, some seven feet deep at points. It would be of no use in a direct hit, but it gives some sense of security. When the air raid sirens sound, they go downstairs and lie in the trench looking up at the sky:

    The moon was full again, and enabled us to see the planes, thousands of feet high, on one of the raids. Another time they descended so low that we could hear their motors. They hit a church, about a block and a half away from us, and we went over and saw them remove a dead body and two women, one with her foot amputated, the other with her thigh ending in a stump of blood at the knee… This morning’s paper says 400 dead and 600 wounded, and that’s only a preliminary count… The sound of an explosion close by, or the sight of a man lying on the street covered with a blanket, blood slowly oozing away from him, or the whistle of a bomb descending, is horrible.

  • Llegan 10 aviones de Stalin

    Thrifty Joseph Stalin belatedly bet another blue chip on the Spanish Loyalists last week in the form of ten splendid Soviet warplanes. Tons of other Soviet war paraphernalia have reached the Leftists in the past month via France. Amid wild cheering in recently bombed Barcelona, Soviet war birds in mass formation darkened the sky and last week the Leftist Cabinet reorganized itself for a last-minute effort to crawl between the jaws of defeat and wrench out the tonsils of victory.

  • El futuro líder de los conservadores británicos habla en Radio Barcelona

    I did not quite know what I was going to find, as this was our first experience of actual warfare … I imagined we might come to a wrecked city and find a terror-stricken people, haggard and worn … with rioting and looting and feelings running high … What we did find surprised us all … Everything is perfectly normal, life is going on almost as usual … people thronging the streets, sitting in cafes, laughing and talking with far from long faces … the liberty of the individual has impressed me greatly … There are no secret courts here. During the raids the same calmness and normal behaviour continues … people go quietly to a shelter, there is no sign of panic. But they realise what it all means, as people who have never seen them never can realise … the destruction of defenceless men, women, and children, bombed in unprotected villages, is most ghastly … I have seen the planes 200 feet above my head, heard the bombs, and the village I had passed through five minutes before was in ruins … Yet still the morale of the people is untouched.

  • Azaña propone «paz, piedad y perdón»

    La guerra civil está agotada en sus móviles porque ha dado exactamente todo lo contrario de lo que se proponían sacar de ella, y ya a nadie le puede caber duda de que la guerra actual no es una guerra contra el Gobierno, ni una guerra contra los gobiernos republicanos, ni siquiera una guerra contra un sistema político: es una guerra contra la nación española entera, incluso contra los propios fascistas, en cuanto españoles, porque será la nación entera quien la sufra en su cuerpo y en su alma.

  • Cómo Gran Bretaña puede aprender de los bombardeos de Barcelona

    To drive home how enormously more horrible the next World War will be than its predecessor, Professor Haldane cited cold figures: «Between January 1917 and November 1918, German aeroplanes dropped 71 tons of bombs on England. These killed 837 people. . . . On March 16-19, 1938, 41 tons of bombs were dropped on Barcelona by German and Italian aeroplanes. They killed about 1,300 people.»

    Thus, had the bombing of Barcelona continued at this maximum intensity for even one full week, both the total weight of bombs dropped and the total casualties in this city would have considerably exceeded what all England suffered in its worst 95 weeks of actual war. Measured thus coldly, the «horrors of bombing» have increased in 20 years nearly 10,000%.

    […]

    «The first air raids may not be on Central London at all but on the traffic jams around it,» warns Professor Haldane. «In Spain, at any rate, the German airmen seem to prefer to attack concentrated traffic, whether on wheel or on foot, rather than to bomb buildings, when they have the choice. … In Barcelona one dives for the nearest shelter, leaving one’s car in the street with the ignition key in place, so that it may be used by officials if necessary. … I would far rather be in Central London during a big air raid than in a traffic jam on the Barnet Bye-Pass or the Great West Road.»

  • Ultimo desfile de las Brigadas Internacionales en Barcelona

    Herbert Matthews, sobre la última parada de los hombres demacrados, enfermos y desharrapados de las Brigadas Internacionales en Barcelona el 28 de octubre de 1938:

    They were not clad in spic-and-span uniforms; their garb was nondescript; they had no arms, and they could not seem to keep in step or in line. But every one who saw them–and above all those who fought with them–knew that these were true soldiers.

  • Última parada de las Brigadas Internacionales en Barcelona

    Hoping to stir the League of Nations to order out the German and Italian troops in Franco’s army, Negrín sent home the International Brigades. On November 15, the foreign volunteers who were still alive paraded through Barcelona, while Negrín gave them thanks and La Pasionaria saluted them: «You can go proudly! You are history! You are legend!» Mussolini in response withdrew some Italian soldiers but left the majority in Spain. Hitler heeded Franco’s pleas for more arms on condition that Germany get critical Spanish mining rights.

  • Misa de Gallo en Calatayud a la espera del asalto final a Barcelona

    Quan les campanes de les diferents esglésies de Calatayud cridaven a missa de mitja nit en el Nadal de 1938, vareig sentir un goig que era impossible d’esplicar, i que no podien entendre els que sempre havien celebrat aquella diada.

    Davant del nostre quartel general, instal·lat en el casino principal de Calatayud, hi havia l’església de Sant Pere. Allí vàrem anar a oir la Missa del Gall la majoria dels que formàvem el «Cuartel General del Ejército de Levante» que comanava el tan recordat General Orgaz.

    Abans s’ens havia repartit un lot de llaminadures que la benemèrita organització de Fronts i Hospitals enviaba a tots els combatents d’Espanya en la nit de Nadal. Vull copiar aquí la seva composició, que l’he guardat en un vell carnet de notes d’aquells dies: Una capsa de codonyat, un troç de torró de massapà, un pot de mermelada, un paquet de cigarretes, un puro, caramels i admetlles, mitja lliure de xacolata, paper d’escriure i una ampolla de conyac per cada quatre soldats, amb la que poguérem curullar el reglamentari «janillo» per dues vegades.

    Després d’uns mesos de no tenir casa, ni família, ni posseir el més necessari, el gest d’aquelles noies i dames de la reraguardia, preocupant-se dels anònims soldats del front, era una cosa que arribava al fons de l’ànima.

    Aquell Nadal era ademés ple d’esperances. En la nit del dia abans–aquell 23 de desembre que havia de marcar una de les més lluminoses fites de la nostra guerra,–s’havia iniciat una ofensiva i precisament en la direcció que nosaltres, catalans, tant desitjàvem. L’avanç que s’iniciava per davant de Balaguer, no havia de parar fins arrivar a Port-Bou!…

    Feia dies que en els nostres meis, sentíem parlar de la operació «Turrón». (Aquest era el nom militar amb què després sabérem es volia designar l’ofensiva de Catalunya.) Però no crèiem que el «Turrón» amb tot i tan desitjar-lo, arrivés a tenir l’extensió i l’importància que tingué.

    Quant uns mesos després en que la pau ja era un fet a tot Espanya, pujava les rústegues escaletes que condueixen al santuari de la Vergé de la Penya, patrona de Calatayud, per a despedir-me i remerciar-la, encara recordava el tel d’emoció que cobria els meus ulls en la Missa del Gall d’aquell Nadal inoblidable, en el que pressentia palpablement, que dintre uns dies o setmanes, podríem tornar a les nostres llars, i allí refer les nostres vides capgirades per les malvestats passades en aquells tres anys.