Learning about La Retirada: How a College in France Teaches Students About the Exile of Spanish Republicans during the Spanish Civil War

As part of the Spanish courses and the citizen course, the third grade classes of the Georges-Rouquier college work on the theme of “La Retirada”, the exodus to France of half a million Spanish Republicans fleeing the troops. of General Franco. When on January 26, 1939, Barcelona fell into the hands of the Francoists, thousands of Republicans from all over Spain gathered at the French border to escape the bombardments and repression. After days of walking in the snow of a particularly harsh winter, they arrive in France in the most complete destitution. The Spaniards in exile are parked in internment camps, which the French authorities themselves will name, in 1939, “concentration camps”. The purpose of this sequence? “ Ensure that students appropriate the notions of commitment to ideals, uprooting, exile and duty to remember “, explains Virginie Moreno, their Spanish teacher, also a descendant of exiles who continues: “It is in this context that Carmen Pendariés Colás, living in Rignac and a descendant of Republican exiles, came to testify in front of the 3rd A students. Carmen told how her family, on the side of her Aragonese father and on the side of her Catalan mother, had experienced this exile and this terrible moment in contemporary history. Tragic episodes of the civil war, perilous flight across the Pyrenees, family separation, internment camps… So many highlights delivered to college students. A moment of discussion then took place.