North of Tortosa lies the town of Gandesa, home to the modern Centre d’Estudis de la Batalla de l’Ebre. This excellent museum presents a balanced account of Spain's Civil War and the decisive battle in the Ebro Valley through a host of artefacts, photographs and interactive maps. Recreations of battlefield conditions portray the grim reality of trench warfare, while moving video interviews (Catalan and Spanish only) bear witness to enduring scars.
The civil war only lasted three years (1936–39) but its effects linger well into the present. You'd be hard-pressed to find a family in Catalonia, or indeed Spain, that hasn’t been affected by the conflict. The largest battle of the war was fought in the Ebro Valley, leading to the destruction of the town of Corbera, and a crushing defeat of the Republicans. Some 20,000 people lost their lives.
The ‘pact of forgetfulness’ after Franco’s death in 1975 meant that the victims of the dictatorship continued to endure past abuses in silence until the last few years, in a country where there has not been any formal postwar reconciliation.
Gandesa is about a 45-minute drive north from Tortosa or one hour west from Tarragona.
