Anyone familiar with Picasso’s Guernica has an insight into the horror of civilian suffering during the Spanish Civil War. This thought-provoking museum traces the experiences of Catalonian people exiled and persecuted during this era. It's aptly located in La Jonquera, 20km north of Figueres, close to the Spain–France border where many Spaniards fled following the Republican defeat in 1939. It explains the build-up to and aftermath of the civil war through photographs, film footage, audioguides and haunting art installations.
For those who survived physical displacement, imprisonment and brutal purges, the psychological wounds continued long after Franco's death in 1975. The museum encourages visitors to think beyond the Spanish Civil War, and to explore the concept of emotional and mental exile more deeply in the context of other global conflicts.
