Jordi Jon Pardo

Left: A fallen olive branch, integral to the landscape where ambushes, operations, and soldiers’ daily lives unfolded during the battles throughout many regions of Spain. The olive tree, ever-present, witnessed both the chaos of war and the quiet moments in between.

Fuentes de Ebro, 2024.

Right: Two re-enactors, one representing the Nationalist side (left) and the other the Republicans (right), stand inside the ruined church of Rodén, a pedanía of Fuentes de Ebro. “This candle here is made from a Coca-Cola can,” says the Republican. During breaks in their performances, they delve into discussions about the history of the war and its tales.

Rodén, like nearby towns such as Belchite, was heavily shelled by artillery and bombed by aircraft, leaving much of the village, including the sacred place, in ruins.  

After the war, a new village was built nearby, but barely any people lived there, and the remains of the old town were still up there on the cerro.

Rodén, 2024.

“The mortar was meant for the other side!”.

In Vilanova de la Barca, between Zaragoza and Barcelona, a plan was to hold back Franco along the Segre River. The offensive occurred in the summer of 1938, marked by intense combat and significant casualties, culminating in one of the conflict’s bloodiest episodes. These lands still witness the fierce battles that shaped the region’s history today.

In the photograph, re-enactors from both sides take their positions to perform the scene in front of a large audience in the fields where many people died.

Vilanova de la Barca, 2024.

Re-enactors fall to the ground, pretending to be dead after being struck by imaginary bullets. Especially during performances in front of an audience, they can spend long times lying still, portraying the fallen soldiers of a real war.

Vilanova de la Barca, 2024.

Republican re-enactment soldiers stage an offensive in the ruins of Rodén, near Fuentes de Ebro. These crumbling remains, abandoned during the height of the Spanish Civil War, bear the scars of intense bombardments. Today, the village is frozen in time, a haunting monument of the battles that once tore through this region. The re-enactors bring these forgotten moments back to life, retracing the steps of those who fought in a war that forever changed the landscape.

“I take off this hat, put on another, and voilà, I’m a Republican now!” says one reenactor, formerly on the Nationalist side, who wanted to join the offensive at the village church.

Fuentes de Ebro, 2024.

The reenactors climbing a hill in the Central Aragón region, in the context of the Battle of Fuentes de Ebro. The Republican forces were attempting to break through Franco’s defenses with tanks supplied by the Soviet Union. The Republicans formed an infantry battalion on top of the tanks, a tactic the Soviets would later employ in World War II.

However, technical failures, a lack of coordination, and fierce enemy resistance led to the Republican's defeat. These arid hills became a graveyard for their ambitions, forcing the soldiers into a bitter retreat and leaving behind many dead, wounded, and tanks, which the Nationalist forces later repurposed for their troops.

Fuentes de Ebro, 2024.

Above, a group of young men from Vilanova de la Barca, barely out of their twenties, captured in 1937. Their faces betray a quiet resolve, lives caught mid-step and forever altered by the chaos of war. In their faces, I see a mixture of camaraderie and the quiet uncertainty of what tomorrow might bring.

These people, born into a world that would soon be doomed by conflict, found themselves on the frontlines of history, caught between personal destiny and the broader forces of violence that spared no one.

Author: Unknown

Archive: Jordi Verdú (organizer of the Vilanova de la Barca battle re-enactment, and once a re-enactor himself, he’s unable to fight due to an accident two years ago but continues to lead the event while recovering).

Vilanova de la Barca, 1937

Republican soldiers ready themselves inside a tank loaded with smoke bombs designed to simulate its destruction during the reenactment. The improvisation resembles the resourcefulness of a side that, by the time of the Ebro offensive, was running out of options and time. The battle, their last central stand, symbolized determination against overwhelming odds. But strategy and courage were no match for dwindling supplies and growing isolation. Like the cause, the tank is a vessel of hope destined to crumble under the weight of inevitability.

Flix, 2024.

At times, wounded soldiers are aided by their comrades, as seen here with two Nationalist re-enactors. Some soldiers, limping and battered, rejoin the battle, their bodies broken but their resolve unshaken, striving to fulfill their duty.

Fuentes de Ebro, 2024.

The bridge at Vilanova de la Barca crosses the Segre River, which was split by trenches and orders.

In 1938, young soldiers passed through this crossing under fire; some crawling through mud, some gripping rifles too heavy for their age, many never returning.

Today, many spiders live above the Segre, suspended, held in place by teranyines. From this angle, the cobwebs resemble the iron sights of soldiers, like those once used to scan the opposite bank to shoot them to death.

Rodén has been uninhabited since its 200 inhabitants fled the war. The exact moment Rodén became a ghost town is uncertain, but it likely occurred between 1936 and 1937.

After the war, a new village was established at the foot of the hill. Today, it is sparsely populated and considered little more than a pedanía of Fuentes de Ebro. The old village, perched atop the mountain like an ancient acropolis, was never rebuilt—one of only a handful of towns destroyed in the war that remain abandoned, alongside Belchite and a few others. Yet, the ruins of old Rodén continue to evoke the presence of civil war, a milestone in the guts of human conflict.

Rodén, 2024.

An Italian soldier poses next to a destroyed BT-5 Republican tank on the outskirts of Fuentes de Ebro. The remnants of this battle, now part of the landscape, remain ingrained in the memories and re-enactments staged in these same olive groves decades later.

Fuentes de Ebro, 1937.

Author: Unknown

Archive: Pablo Gracia (re-enactor, high-ranking member for both sides).

Left: Sometimes, you have to surrender. Here, a Republican re-enactor raises his hands during a Nationalist ambush in an olive grove. The soldier was caught in a moment of vulnerability, set in a landscape still connected to wartime.

Fuentes de Ebro, 2024.

Right: “Please, return me this one; it is a very beautiful piece.” The re-enactors unearthed rusty cartridge fragments during an excursion during which they practiced many different battlefield techniques. These artifacts, found in situ, are scattered across the ground almost 90 years later.

Fuentes de Ebro, 2024.

Along the margins of small roads, abandoned houses suggest vanished lives, their spectral forms hinting at a broken story. For those seeking the past, a ruin is an inspiration where the memory gains a scenario.

Zaragoza, 2024.

Republican re-enactors in a trench, imitating the situation where the Republicans launched an offensive in July 1938.

Vilanova de la Barca, 2024.

“You were the war photographer today; you deserve the medal.” Every participant in the battle reenactment received one.

Natalia's portrait tells the story of the thousands of women who took up arms during the Spanish Civil War. Over 3.000 women served as soldiers in the Ejército Popular de la República, often defying societal expectations and fighting alongside men on the front lines.

Many joined voluntarily, driven by a deep sense of duty to the Republic and the belief that defending it was inseparable from protecting their rights and freedoms, knowing that a fascist victory would erase the gains they had fought for during the 20th century. They were not formally recruited in the same way as men but took up arms in the early stages of the conflict, motivated by political conviction and the urgent need to resist Franco.

Re-enactors come from all over the country and have formed a kind of family. They gather not only for battles but also to share meals beforehand, and after the reenactments, they celebrate as soldiers once did in camps between the trenches.

Vilanova de la Barca, 2024.

The face of war. A composition of artifacts discovered by re-enactors during their exploration of the battlefields around Fuentes de Ebro: rifle butts, grenade rings, shell casings, shrapnel fragments, bullets, and the base of a bottle, likely used for wine or medicine.

Fuentes de Ebro, 2024.

Re-enactors, both Nationalists and Republicans, search for war relics along the region that defines the river valleys of Aragón. This horizon has witnessed extensive violence beyond the Spanish Civil War.

As they examine the ground, the reenactors gather more than just relics. They hypothesize about the origins of each object, envisioning the soldiers strategically positioned here and there. “Many shots were fired into the sky to scare the enemy”. Imagination breathes life into the past, offering a window into the war that melds memory with the interest of reenactment. Bound by this particular passion, they roam these fields, tracing the very metals of battles.

Fuentes de Ebro, 2024.

Nationalist artillerymen took a moment of rest and shared joy during the battles.

Fuentes de Ebro, 1938.

Author: Unknown

Archive: Pablo Gracia (re-enactor, high-ranking member for both sides).

On Cota 221, where the Battle of Fuentes de Ebro etched its mark in September 1937, reenactors gather to pull threads from history’s fabric. The Wirgin camera in hand—one from that era—seems to blur decades, capturing a memory reawakened.

Author: Sean Edwards

Fuentes de Ebro, 2024.

Re-enactment soldiers have a rest after trekking several kilometers in search of a relic. Their journey across this land is a quest for relics and a deeper connection to the past, tracing the footsteps of soldiers who battled around.

Fuentes de Ebro, 2024.

Left & Background: Two photographs of Quinto, a village in the Zaragoza countryside, seen from the early stretches of the N-232, the road that once threaded small rural communities to the capital. In these images, time seems to reveal the blurred traces of a fragmented history.

N-232, Zaragoza, 1937.

Author: Unknown

Archive: Pablo Gracia(re-enactor, high-ranking member for both sides).

Right: Re-enactment soldiers march through a cold October night along the under-construction N-232, the road that still connects the villages of Aragón with Zaragoza and beyond.

N-232, Zaragoza, 2024.