On May 31, 1938, five Italian planes dropped sixty bombs on Granollers, killing two hundred and twenty-six people and wounding about a thousand more. The bombs exploded in a school and in the Porxada market: the victims included many women and children. In the years of Francoism, the subject was not discussed, of course. Towards the 1970s, testimonies began to be collected, with that feeling of arriving late in many post-Franco studies, based on oral sources. Albert Forns Canal (Granollers, 1982) tells it in the epilogue of the book. He talks about John Hersey's report Hiroshima (1946), which was published a year after the atomic bomb, and he wonders what I el cel ens va caure al damunt would have been like if it could have been written, I'm not saying in 1939, let's put in 1950, with many people alive of those who suffered it.
All this, obviously, is science fiction, because Franco won the war and things took a certain course. If the war had been won by the Republic, the story would have been different. There is always a story. The one from 1971, when Franco was still in charge, is different than the one from 1977, than the one from 1985. That is why it seems strange to me to read, lately, books like the one by Forns or the one by Eduard Márquez that presuppose that the facts are what they are. and that it is enough to organize a chorus of voices to, I am not saying trying to find out what happened, but -to limit ourselves to what literature is more capable of doing- create an emotion. It seems to me that the context is essential. Know who tells you and at what time. How many years have passed, how has the life of the person who speaks to you been?
On the other hand, the objectivity of the transcription is debatable. I el cel ens va caure al damunt begins by describing the war action: the preparations of the Italian aviators, the frivolous life they led in Majorca, the rushed way in which they locate Granollers on the map, head towards it and drop the bombs before time. Is it recorded exactly as we read it? at what time? The only reference is a footnote to the epilogue. It tells us that the recordings that have served as the basis for the book come from a project of the Granollers town hall and the Democratic Memorial and that they can be consulted in the Fonts Orals section of the Granollers Municipal Archive website.
Behind I el cel ens va caure al damunt there is an enormous love and work. Forns writes for the community. He recreates the fateful minute from a multiplicity of points of view that convey to us the uncertainty, pain, despair and resignation of men, women and children. In the twenty-five reports we find Antoni Jonch, who was director of the Barcelona Zoo, Paco Parellada, owner of the Europa inn who was the chef of the Republic Pavilion at the Paris Exposition, and Joan Triadú, who in 1938 was a master of sixteen years. Among many other figures facing the absurd and death, we hear from convinced and active Republicans, a Free Women militiawoman, a woman who sells fish, a boy who is late for school, an ambushed man. Forns chimes in on the transcript of the interviews, he is humanly involved, and sometimes it is not clear whose opinions they are. In the case of the dead, like Francesc Abelló Gràcia, who ended up in an extermination camp, he is even more committed, because despite being the protagonist, his story comes to us through an intermediary.
Here is an intense book, full of life, heartfelt, deep, with that point of formal daring of the works of Forns, which is appreciated. A book that must be read, to feel the horror of the story, appreciate the generosity of the author and discuss the point of view.
Albert Forns Canal And the sky fell on us Editions 62 220 pages. 19.90 euros
