Plaça Catalunya has always had an indisputable centrality; the proof is that under all political regimes it has been chosen to stage acts, transcendent or not, of very different signs.
A few weeks after the city had passed in 1939 into the hands of the Francoist Army of Occupation, there was no hesitation in staging the commemoration of May 2, 1808, despite the fact that that distant popular anti-Napoleonic uprising in Madrid was not a round birthday
The Organización Juvenil de Falange Española Tradicionalista and JONS was responsible for the event. They wanted to get income from these patriotic acts; and it was intended to glorify that historic revolt with the recent uprising of July 1936.
A large obelisk was erected in the center of the lower part. On the edge, the altar was installed for the celebration of a campaign mass, surrounded by flags, banners and scripts. He set up a guard throughout the morning and early hours of the morning made up of a selection of students from Escoles Pies. They were all in military uniform, in addition to the rifle and the helmet. The announced event had to be suspended due to bad weather. What remained of all this was the cover-worthy photograph in La Vanguardiacaptured by the accredited professional Antoni Campañà, who chose the epic shot of a teenage Antoni Tàpies' forehead as the protagonist of the image. The information was monopolized by a detailed world chronicle of Labor Day and by Hitler's great speech in Berlin, preceded by Goebbels's. Fortunately, the obelisk was dismantled.
The following year, this same commemoration was repeated, which was accompanied by good weather. The obelisk was replanted; at mid-height, the Phalangist arrows and below a large cross; at the foot was the inscription: “Caídos por Dios y por España. Present! 2 May 1808 - 2 May 1940".
At the end, the male and female sections of the Organización Juvenil, Flechas Navales, Flechas del Aire, second-line militia sections and a flag of the Spanish University Union paraded. Fortunately, a similar masquerade was not repeated.
That same day the Book Festival was also celebrated: a different atmosphere.
