Global SOS for Belchite: Definitive ruin threatens remains of town that became a symbol of the Spanish Civil War

“Blasphemy is prohibited.” The sign above the Arco de la Villa, one of the entrances to the Old Town of Belchite, reveals that we are at the doors of other times and other conflicts. This place, located about 40 kilometers from Zaragoza and reached today by a winding road through the steppe, was home in the 1930s to around 4,500 inhabitants, who lived in relative prosperity, thanks above all to their olive trees and cereal crops. This much is confirmed by its main street, which was flanked by houses, churches, and even Mudejar and Baroque-style synagogues. Of all that, only ruins and rubble remain due to a Spanish Civil War battle that resulted in 5,000 casualties between dead and wounded and the passage of time.

“The town had no walls; the terraced houses fulfilled that function,” says Marta Beltrán, head of the Belchite Tourist Office and a local guide who leads tours of the remains of the town. In 2024, there were 38,000 visitors, she says. Beltrán also belongs to the Fundación Pueblo Viejo de Belchite, a local entity that since 2019 has been trying, as Miguel de Unamuno said, to make “even a ruin be a hope.”

To achieve this, they have received the help of the World Monuments Fund (WMF), an international non-profit founded in New York in 1965 that, since 1996, publishes a list of monuments and sites in danger around the world every two years. It helps these by raising funds from donors and sponsors. Throughout its history, the WMF has participated in more than 700 projects in 112 countries, for which it has raised some $300 million, according to the organization.

Among the 25 places on the most recent WMF watch list is Belchite, a symbol of the barbarity of the Spanish Civil War and of human neglect towards historical heritage, in this case, war heritage. Belchite was declared a Site of Cultural Interest (BIC) in 2002. WMF estimates that if the current rate of deterioration is not remedied, the remains of Belchite will have disappeared in about 20 years. Other sites chosen in 2025 include Gaza’s Historic Urban Fabric, the Kyiv Teacher’s House (Ukraine), and the Historic City of Antakya (Turkey).

Pablo Longoria, executive director of the WMF branch in Spain, which opened in 1992, explains that in this latest call for applications “more than 250 were received.” A panel of seven heritage experts decided that Belchite should be on the final list “due to the risk of collapse.” “Now it is a matter of seeking private funds to conserve what is possible and to attend to other needs, such as the creation of a visitor center.”

The person who managed to get WMF, which organized this press trip, to notice the needs of Belchite was a private individual (administrations, institutions, entities, etc. can also apply): Joan Sastre, a native of the island of Mallorca, a computer engineer and lover of the Aragonese land and its historical heritage, who presented a report with data and facts that justified the SOS. “Since I came here for the first time, I was struck by this place. I keep coming back a lot, but every time I see a new crack or one fewer wall,” he says.

Marta Beltrán explains that in 1936 there was a socialist mayor in Belchite, Mariano Castillo. When war broke out after the failed coup d’état led by Francisco Franco, the town was taken over by Falangist militia fighting on the Nationalist side, who arrived from Zaragoza on the night of 18-19 July. In addition to killing “around 300 people,” they arrested the mayor. Castillo left a diary of those days, in which his handwriting gradually became more illegible due to his suffering, and drops of his blood stained the paper. Eventually, he took his own life.

As Beltrán walks among stones and dust on a sunny day, she says that with Belchite converted into a stronghold of the Nationalist rebels in the middle of a Republican zone, the war front was stabilized “about two kilometers from the town.” “There were a few skirmishes, until the Republican offensive began on 24 August, 1937.” The French historian Stéphane Michonneau, author of It was yesterday: Belchite. A town facing the question of the past (2017), explains by telephone the reasons that led the Republic to take a place of little strategic importance at all costs. “In essence, they wanted to distract the Francoists from their own advance in the Basque Country by taking Zaragoza.” However, the resistance of some 2,000 soldiers, who were joined by part of the population, hidden in the town’s cellars, turned the conquest of the town into a ground siege with aerial bombardments.

Belchite’s value multiplied to the point that the communist leader Dolores Ibárruri, La Pasionaria, came to encourage the Republican effort. It was also a magnet for journalists, such as Ernest Hemingway, who travelled to witness the battle.

Finally, on the night of 5-6 September, after two weeks of fierce house-to-house fighting, as the layout of the streets prevented the tanks from advancing, the besieged escaped amid blood and fire through the Arco de San Roque, another of the town’s arched gates, after several failed attempts. “Those who did not manage to escape were shot,” says Michonneau. Belchite then crystallized as a myth of the Republican struggle. In March 1938, at the height of the advance of Franco’s army, his troops recaptured the town with hardly any resistance. Beltrán estimates that around “30% of the houses were affected by the battle.” The extensive damage that can be seen today was also exacerbated by the passage of time and the climatic conditions in a place exposed to rain, wind, and heat. The tour guide estimates that today not even 10% of the town’s buildings remain.

After the Nationalist victory, Franco visited the town to promise that, just as would happen with Oviedo or the University City of Madrid, Belchite would rise from its ashes. He made this vow on March 3, 1938, from a balcony at the Town Hall, in the Plaza Nueva, where the fountain with four spouts is still preserved and where the women of Belchite went to get water and to tell each other their stories. However, at the end of the war, Franco decided that the town would remain as it was, “as a symbol of Red barbarism.”

The dictator ordered the construction of a new Belchite next to the razed one “with the labor of prisoners from the International Brigades and then of Republican prisoners,” says Michonneau, a professor at the University of Paris-Est Créteil (UPEC). Why did Franco change his mind? The historian says that, among the possible reasons, he wanted to “connect with the Falangist discourse, which was passionate about ruins.” The new Belchite, which today has some 1,500 inhabitants, was inaugurated in 1954. Ten years later, the last inhabitant of old Belchite departed.

In addition to guided tours, the Fundación Pueblo Viejo de Belchite and the City Council have set up other initiatives to use these ruins as a driving force for cultural tourism, such as for film shoots. These non-streets have been the setting for films such as Pan’s Labyrinth, by Guillermo del Toro; The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, by Terry Gilliam; or Uncertain Glory, by Agustí Villaronga, as well as television series such as The Walking Dead.

Since 2000, several rebuilding efforts have been carried out. “The most recent was last November, with the consolidation of the apse of the church of San Martín,” explains María José Andrés, head of the Fundación Pueblo Viejo de Belchite. Although before undertaking the work “the Tedax [bomb disposal units] had to be called to deactivate a projectile; it is something that often happens.” The art historian highlights another consolidated ruin, the Clock Tower, a Mudejar construction from the 16th century, belonging to a church that no longer exists, and points out that along with the visits, throughout the year, among other activities, “a music festival and a film festival” are held. “They are different ways for the past to favor the future.”

The tour ends at the 15th-century church of San Martín de Tours, whose roof has completely disappeared. On its wooden door there is a plaque with the lyrics of the melancholic jota (a traditional Aragonese song), composed by Natalio Baquero, who had the misfortune of being born in Belchite during the battle, on September 1, 1937: “Old town of Belchite, the young shepherds no longer roam there, the jotas our fathers sang will no longer be heard.”

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