Spanish Civil War 1936–1939
Portbou – Walter Benjamin memorial 'Passatges'
Memorial
The story
Portbou, the railway frontier town, was one of the main crossing points of the Retirada in February 1939. Eighteen months later the flow ran the other way: refugees from Nazi-occupied France tried to reach Spain and Portugal. On 26 September 1940 the German-Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin, turned back by the Spanish authorities after crossing the Pyrenees on foot, took his own life here. Dani Karavan's memorial 'Passatges' (1994) is a steel corridor descending towards the sea. It belongs to the story of exile rather than to the Civil War itself.
What you can see today
Karavan's steel stairway descending towards the sea beside the cemetery, Benjamin's memorial stone, and the view over the bay.
Plan your visit
Free; a short walk up from the station to the cemetery; combine with the border crossing to Cerbère.
Sources
- poblesdecatalunya.cat/element.php?e=8684
- poblesdecatalunya.cat/element.php?e=8684
- tracesofwar.com/sights/9205/Grave-Walter-Benjamin-Cemetery-Portbou.htm
Nearby sites
- MUME – Museu Memorial de l'Exili, La Jonquera · 24 km
- Castell de Sant Ferran, Figueres (last Cortes) · 25 km
- La Vajol & Coll de Lli – exile crossing · 30 km
- Bunquers de Martinet (Línea P) · 122 km
- Camp de la Bóta memorial (Fraternitat) · 137 km
- Turó de la Rovira anti-aircraft battery (Bunkers del Carmel) · 139 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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