Perhaps one of the most surreal things to experience in life is that of witnessing the scars of war. This is something that had never been in my conscience until by chance I visited a destroyed village. It wasn’t time or nature what destroyed it; it was war.
During the Battle of the Ebro of the Spanish Civil War the republicans and the nationalists fought for supremacy over Catalonia. The Italians and Germans aiding their nationalist allies unleashed a relentless campaign of carpet bombing through the Ebro delta. Thus Corbera d’Ebre a village which had no military value was destroyed. The village lies on a mount, today a modern village exists below the mount keeping the name of the original village. It has since expanded to perhaps 10 times the size of the original footprint.
While climbing the mount, the church of the village stands out as the only real building that significantly survived the bombing raid. When I first visited 13 years ago the church was closed off to visits, it’s ceiling had not been properly repaired and it posed a danger. Regardless the church was not what caused an impact on me.
Strolling through the ghost town, the streets full of rubble and destroyed buildings was what left a big impression on me. For a society that has normalized and created entertainment out of war, one is often oblivious to what war looks like. Surreal is the feeling that dominated me, in my mind this did not feel real. As if in my head the very act, and excesses of war were not a common human behavior.
I spent a while walking around the destroyed town, houses in various degrees of destruction. My harrowing visit made even more dramatic by the fact that I was alone in this ghost town. Life brewed not far away at the new village, but at my feet the calmness of what once must had been a nightmare.
A few months ago I visited again, not much had changed. The church was now restored and held a small museum of what had happened. Outside the streets, the buildings, the ruble remained still. This time too, I was alone in the streets of the ghost town.
I truly hope I never have to experience war.
