Researchers get back a shelter used during the Battle of the Ebro by International Brigades
Researchers of the DIDPATRI research group (Heritage Didactics, Museography and New Technologies) of the University of Barcelona and researchers of the University of Glasgow, with the support of Associació Lo Riu, started an excavation, cleaning and recovering a shelter used during the Ebro River battle in the Spanish Civil War, in Corbera dʼEbre. It is an emblematic place since it used to be a leadership area in British battalion of the 15th International Brigade and the Palafox battalion, where there was Naftalí Botwin -formed by Jews and later almost erased. On Saturday September 24 there will be an open day to show the place and the task of the researchers.
Researchers of the DIDPATRI research group (Heritage Didactics, Museography and New Technologies) of the University of Barcelona and researchers of the University of Glasgow, with the support of Associació Lo Riu, started an excavation, cleaning and recovering a shelter used during the Ebro River battle in the Spanish Civil War, in Corbera dʼEbre. It is an emblematic place since it used to be a leadership area in British battalion of the 15th International Brigade and the Palafox battalion, where there was Naftalí Botwin -formed by Jews and later almost erased. On Saturday September 24 there will be an open day to show the place and the task of the researchers.
The shelter was found thanks to the work of the British historian Alan Warren -among other contributions. It is a thirty square-meters space which had two entrances and is located near Corbera dʼEbre. According to the director of DIDPATRI, Professor of Teaching and Learning of Social Sciences, Francesc Xavier Hernández, “they recovered the structure of the shelter, which has a symbolic value”. The researcher said that they are willing to “make the place a bit “museum-like” and place a memory spot there”. During August and early September in 1938, the Republican Forces went backwards in several combat scenarios in the Battle of the Ebro. The town conflict in Corbera dʼEbre and its surroundings was very hard and provoked criminal combats.
The task in this shelter lies within the work line of public archaeology of the DIDPATRI group. The team in Corbera dʼEbre is directed by the archaeologist Mireia Romero Serra and is built by six archaeologists and researchers of the DIDPATRI group of the University of Barcelona, with a long experience on Civil War archaeological contributions (Talamanca, Prats de Rei, Fatarella, republican aerodromes in Penedès, etc.), as well as three archaeologists of the University of Glasgow who collaborate with DIDPATRI group on conflict archaeological researches.