(Shrapnel pockmarks in the stone walls of Placa de Sant Felip Neri, where 42 mostly children died in fascist bombings in early 1938)
When Catalonia fell to Franco's Nationalist forces in February of 1939, the lifeblood to the Republican defence of Spanish democracy was cut off.
A final offensive against the fascists took place in Madrid during the months of March and April, but to no avail.
By 31 March 1939, Franco had signed a friendship pact with Hitler and, in a deeply deplorable betrayal of democratic principles, Britain recognised Franco's Nationalist rebels as the legitimate government of Spain.
Britain granted recognition to Franco despite the fact that the fascist leader had assumed power through an illegal coup and begun a civil war that ultimately claimed half a million lives.
Franco remained in power as dictator of Spain until his death in 1975.
During Franco's siege of Barcelona, Italian pilots of the Aviazione Legionaria, along with pilots of Luftwaffe's Condor Legion, made increasing use of indiscriminate bombings of civilians.
On the 30 January 1938, an Italian bomber dropped ordinance on the heart of Barcelona's Gothic Quarter, hitting a church and the square named after Sant Felip Neri. At the time, the church housed refugee children from Madrid and children from a school next door were playing in the square.
Thirty children were killed.
During the subsequent rescue effort, a second bomb killed a further twelve people.
The bombing of Sant Felip Neri is considered the second worst individual bombing incident in the Spanish civil war, after Guernica.
To this day, Barcelona's city authorities close off the lovely little square of Sant Felip Neri to adults at certain times every day to allow children to exclusively enjoy the space.
It is as if Barcelona's adults are still trying to make amends for the shameful and unspeakable attrocity against wholly innocent children in early 1938.
Barcelona's authorities took steps early to ensure that the bombing of Placa de Sant Felip Neri would never be forgotten; they refused to replace the stones in the walls of the square, which still carry deep and angry pockmarks made by Mussolini's and Hitler's exploding bombs (picture above).
The decision not to repair the broken stones was a deliberate 'protest of omission' aimed at countering Franco's propaganda that the shrapnel scars in Placa de Sant Felip Neri had been caused by bullets from anarchist executions of priests.
The people of Barcelona knew better. They kept the truth alive to this day by leaving the shrapnel scarred stones in place.
Sadly, such efforts seem, once again, to be pertinent. Fascism is returning. Fascists respect neither human rights, the rule of law, nor democracy. They will take power at any cost. As such, they must be fought with all available means, including violence if necessary.
End
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