Plaça de Sant Felip Neri — Scars of the Civil War

The Church of Sant Felip Neri in Barcelona's Plaça de Sant Felip Neri bears stone scars from a January 30, 1938 Spanish Civil War bombing that killed 42 people, including 20 children hiding in its basement air raid shelter. Fascist Italian aircraft struck the square twice during a morning raid. Inside, a 1902 painting of the saint by Joan Llimona uses architect Antoni Gaudí as a model.

Barcelona · from the walk “Stones & Secrets: Hidden Courtyards of the Barri Gòtic” · audio ~3 min · Generated

Plaça de Sant Felip Neri, Barcelona

What caused the scars on the church wall in Plaça de Sant Felip Neri?

Take a breath. Listen. Can you hear it? The soft trickle of water from that octagonal fountain... the distant laughter of schoolchildren. This is Plaça de Sant Felip Neri, one of the most hauntingly beautiful squares in all of Barcelona. But those walls in front of you... they tell a very different story.......... Run your eyes across the façade of the church. See those deep, jagged pockmarks carved into the stone? Those are not decorative. Those are wounds.......... On the morning of January thirtieth, nineteen thirty eight, the Italian Legionary Aviation, allied with Franco's Nationalist forces, unleashed a relentless bombing campaign on Barcelona... from nine in the morning until eleven twenty, without pause. The church basement was being used as an air raid shelter, filled with children evacuated from war zones across the Republic. A bomb struck the building directly, burying those who had sought safety below. Twenty children died instantly. And then came the cruelest part. The bombers used a calculated technique... they stopped firing, waited for survivors to emerge thinking it was over, and then struck Again. A second bomb hit the square while rescuers were pulling bodies from the rubble. By the end of that morning, forty two people lay dead, and over a hundred were wounded.......... But here is something most visitors never learn. For Decades under Franco's dictatorship, the regime spread a deliberate lie... claiming those scars on the wall were bullet holes from anarchist firing squads who had executed priests. It was propaganda, designed to cover their own crime with a story that demonized the other side.......... And one more extraordinary detail. If you step Inside the church, you will find paintings of Saint Philip Neri by the Catalan artist Joan Llimona. Look closely at the saint's face. In nineteen oh two, Llimona used the features of his friend... Antoni Gaudí... as his model. Yes, Barcelona's most famous architect is hidden in plain sight on these walls! Gaudí visited this very church daily for prayer and confession. In fact, on June seventh, nineteen twenty six, he was walking Here, to Sant Felip Neri, when he was struck by a tram on Gran Vía. He died three days later. This humble church was his last intended destination.......... Today, the children of Escola Sant Felip Neri play in this square during recess, their voices echoing off the same scarred stones. Life persisting exactly where it was once so brutally taken. That is what this square holds... tragedy and tenderness, side by side, carved into the very same wall.

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