This is how the residents of Llers experienced the explosion of their town.

BarcelonaOn February 8, 1939, the village of Llers (Alt Empordà) disappeared from the map. The Republican army, with the war almost lost, detonated the powder magazine in the church, leaving only rubble. The neighbors had been warned, but they hadn't expected such destruction. When they returned, they no longer found their house, nor the sheets or the dishes they had hidden. "Nothing remained. The residents of Llers lost absolutely everything, not even their memories. They had lived through three years of war, and on the last day, their town blew up," he explains. Maria Escalas (Palma, 1969), which in the book Nothing was left (Ara Llibres) captures how that loss impacted its inhabitants.

Escalas unravels the story through the testimony of its inhabitants: a Republican soldier who deserts when the war is already lost and, when he returns to the town seeking refuge, finds it gone; a Republican teacher full of enthusiasm; a blacksmith who loses his wife and children to an illness; a deceased woman trying to rest in the cemetery; General Enrique Líster, who decides to detonate the powder magazine; a murdered mayor; a child of the post-war period; the granddaughter who listens to her grandparents tell her not to get involved in any political struggles and explains how her grandfather was fined for digging up the railing of his house...

"To tell the drama of the disappearance of a town, I chose to take photographs of small dramas, like the mother who suffers because she no longer has her mother," explains Escalas. "I have tried to explain what one misses when nothing remains."

A little-known story

In the author's opinion, the history of Llers is not well known. "Llers is known for stories of witches and cherries, but not for the powder magazine explosion," she says. It was the Republican army that decided to blow it up to hinder the advance of Franco's troops. Llers, between Figueres and La Jonquera, was a transit point and played a significant role in the resistance and evacuation of the last Republican military units. "In Llers, there were residents with different ideologies, but a Republican sentiment dominated, and it must have been quite painful to have your town blown up by those you consider to be on your side. I suppose that's why it hasn't been talked about much," says Escalas. "Franco made a speech saying he was adopting the town, but it was just words, because there was no financial aid or tax exemption. Those who decided to continue living in the town had to build a new house and pay for it," adds the author, who intersperses official and historical documentation with witnesses.

The town was never the same again. Where the town hall used to be, there's now a square, and where the church used to be, there's now an open field. Only a few walls remained, and some of its inhabitants had to live among the rubble before they could have a house with a roof. Not all of the inhabitants returned, either, and the population declined considerably. According to Escalas, there's a certain lack of memory. "One day, walking through the town, I met a boy, and he told me he'd been a lifelong resident of Llers, but he couldn't tell me where the church had been," he explains.

"One of the things that has fascinated me most is the resilience of the inhabitants, how they came out despite everything. For example, celebrating Carnival was strictly prohibited during the post-war period, but they kept going," he says. "I didn't want to do anything epic, or use grandiloquent words. There's an African saying that explains that when elephants fight, the ants pay the price. I was interested in talking about ants," he adds.

Escalas has drawn on all the documentation he has accumulated in other books, such as Before your memory turns to ash (Amsterdam, 2016), a story of the Civil War set in a town in Mallorca, and above all of the documentary produced by the Llers City Council, with the support of the Democratic Memorial, about the church explosion, which can be seen at Llerscultura.cat. The documentary features, for example, the testimony of Joaquima Oliva, which the writer recounts in the book. Oliva recalls that the family was Republican, but that Republican soldiers arrested her father, grandfather, and uncle for a fight with a mule and imprisoned them in the church filled with dynamite. Escalas captures the anguished moments of the three men, who, fortunately, were able to break free and extinguish the fuse in time.