The Wounds of War

My maternal grandmother, Lluïsa, has just turned ninety. She was born in Barcelona and the first thing she remembers is the Civil War. In fact, she has a small war wound. When she was running towards an air-raid shelter in the Sants neighborhood to protect herself from the bombs, she tripped on a stone and got a wound. Since then, she has had a small deformity in the nail of one of her toes her whole life.

Between March 16 and 18, 1938, Barcelona suffered the most terrible bombings of the entire Civil War. I have reviewed a few photos from those days and it is impressive to see how exactly eighty-four years ago a rain of bombs sowed destruction and death in our city.

In those bombings, a part of Barcelona died that was lost forever. I refer, first of all, to all the people who perished in the attacks, but also to the wounds that their death caused in families, friends, neighbors, or co-workers. The city also lost dozens of buildings. Therefore, many Barcelonans were left without a home or job. The war also took away dreams, illusions, life projects, professional careers...

It is curious how so many years later some of the wounds of that war are still clearly visible. If we look closely at people and places, we will also discover that there are wounds that have never fully healed. Surely because it is impossible.

If we look closely at people and places, we will also discover that there are wounds that have never fully healed

We can follow the war in the shrapnel marks that are still on the facade of Sant Felip Neri where, on January 30, 1938, a particularly hateful bomb dropped by Italian aviation killed thirty children who were sheltering in the convent. From time to time, an unexploded bomb also appears and those who have lived with it unknowingly for years have their blood run cold. But where the war is most alive is in the stories of the children who lived it.Of the few who are still alive because, soon, no one will be able to explain the war to us in the first person.

The war in Ukraine makes me think a lot about our war. I think that our grandparents' generation suffered a horror practically identical to what Ukrainians are experiencing now. One day you have a normal life, with normal worries, and the next day everything collapses. It happened to us in the thirties and now it has happened to them. Of course, we could also talk about the Syrians, Iraqis, Bosnians, or so many other victims of wars forgotten by everyone except those who suffer them.

One day the fighting will end in Ukraine, just as it ended here, and there too a slow process of reconstruction and healing will begin. Houses, factories, cafes, and theaters will be repaired. Tons of scrap metal will be removed. Children will play in the streets again, and no one will need to sleep in subway stations for fear of bombs. The dead will be buried, as will the most painful memories. Years will pass and children will be born who will not have suffered the war, but perhaps they will inherit its wounds because the wounds of war, small or large, are persistent.