The meaning of Norman Bethune in the construction of the Public Memory on the road Malaga-Almeria, 1937

Abstract

During the Spanish Civil War, the Canadian doctor Norman Bethune arrived in Spain, in November 1936, commissioned by the Canadian Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy. The International Red Aid assumed his project to create a Mobile Blood Transfusion Bethune and the members of his Unit travelled to the Malaga front in February 1937, but never reached their destination. On the road between Malaga and Almeria, there were about 100,000 people who walked in extreme conditions, after being attacked by aviation and the boats of the Francoist army. Bethune put the vehicle of the Unit at the disposal of children and patients who in successive trips were transferred to Almeria. In Spain, both the historiography of the Civil War and the works that have supported the construction of the Historical Memory of the event has focused almost exclusively on the testimony of Bethune. A comparative reading with the story of other witnesses and recent biographical works allows access to another angle of vision and, above all, to rethink the contents that have supported the construction his memory in Spain.