From the Field: Building a Plurality of Memories in Spain
By Zina Precht-Rodriguez, Columbia College '19
The story of Spain’s traumatic history is compelling because it is continuously unfolding. One of my most memorable experiences in Barcelona this summer was my visit to an air raid shelter that was designed during the Spanish Civil War to protect thousands of civilians during the fascist bombings of Barcelona. The existence of the shelter was only discovered a couple of years ago by a cable company. The company intended to build an underground landline to connect more people throughout Spain, but the irony of the situation is that something much deeper connects the people of Spain: a traumatic memory that tells the story of a vicious divide within Spain, as well as within Europe, of those who risked their lives for progressive change and those who compromised their own morality.
In 2017, these casual rediscoveries of a traumatic Spanish past are triggering an outpouring of civilian, intellectual and political inquiry. The European Observatory for Memories (EUROM) addresses...