Spanish Civil War 1936–1939
Plaça de Sant Felip Neri (bombing of 30 January 1938)
Barcelona · City site
The story
On 30 January 1938 Italian aircraft from Mallorca bombed the old city of Barcelona. One bomb fell on this small square, where the church crypt was used as an air-raid shelter by the neighbouring school and children who had been evacuated from Madrid. As rescuers dug survivors out of the rubble, a second bomb struck. Forty-two people were killed, most of them children, making it one of the deadliest single incidents of the city's bombing. For decades the damage to the church front was said to come from executions; today a plaque records the true cause.
What you can see today
The church façade is still pitted with shrapnel scars, and a plaque remembers the victims; the rest of the square is unchanged.
Plan your visit
Free, always accessible, in the Gothic Quarter a few minutes from the cathedral; a quiet place, so please be respectful as the school still uses the square.
Sources
- tracesofwar.com/sights/90673/War-Damage-Congregaci%C3%B3n-Del-Oratorio-De-Sant-Felip-Neri.htm
- tracesofwar.com/sights/90673/War-Damage-Congregaci%C3%B3n-Del-Oratorio-De-Sant-Felip-Neri.htm
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pla%C3%A7a_de_Sant_Felip_Neri
Nearby sites
- Barcelona Cathedral – the religious persecution of 1936 · under 1 km
- Teatre Poliorama, La Rambla (Orwell's rooftop) · under 1 km
- Telefónica building & Plaça de Catalunya (May Days 1937) · under 1 km
- Refugi 307, Poble-sec (MUHBA) · 2 km
- Castell de Montjuïc · 2 km
- Fossar de la Pedrera, Montjuïc · 4 km
All 158 sites in Spanish Civil War 1936–1939 →
The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939
A free field guide for your phone: the route, the maps and the stories built in, even with no signal. The battlefields, trenches, ruined villages, shelters, museums and memorials of the Spanish Civil War across the whole of Spain, told fairly from both sides.
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