Forced to leave their country, and contribute to making their contributions and legacies known to the general public.

Around half a million Spaniards, loyal to the Republican cause, and victims of Franco’s repression crossed, during the last three months of the civil war, the French border mainly through the steps of Cerbère, Le Pertus and Bourg-Madame. Shortly afterwards they would begin their new lives, far from their homeland, not only in France and other Western European countries. The diaspora of the protagonists of this unprecedented human tragedy, who escaped death, took them to Moscow and other cities in Eastern Europe, to Mexico, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Argentina, the United States, Algiers and other host countries.

The space "The Archery", in New Ministries, presents over 1,300 m2 a little more than 300 pieces between plastic work, photographic reproductions and publications, among other media, which reflect the most important cultural, artistic and literary manifestations of those who best documented that exodus.

The main exhibition "1939, Spanish republican exile" shows life in the French concentration camps, the ships that set sail full of hope, the tragedy of the Nazi concentration and extermination camps, the reception of France, Mexico, Chile and the United States, among other countries, the Return, after the death of Franco, during the Transition begun in 1977. It reflects the commitment of loyalty to the values of the Second Republic through the work of artists who set out to reflect and give voice to those thousands of exiled Spaniards. The exhibited material shows works by Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, José Vela Zanetti, Baltasar Lobo, and different literary works, as well as historical documents. The writer and art critic Juan Manuel Bonet is the curator of the exhibition, with the collaboration of Manuel Aznar and Idoia Murga as scientific advisors.

"Roads of exile. Children's Colonies and Camps of La Retiro: The Humanitarian and Photographic Work of Philippe Gaussot" is a collection of unpublished photographs discovered by his son Jean-Philippe Gaussot, in a suitcase, after the death of his father. The negatives were entrusted to the association "24 Août 1944". Felip Solé and Grégory Tuban are responsible for this exhibition of photographs.

"Blood is not water", by the artist Pierre Gonnord, brings a delicate and shocking vision of some of the exiles currently residing in France, their life and their most personal objects of remembrance. Carmen Fernández Ortiz is responsible for the installation.

The exhibitions will be open to the public from December 5 to January 31, 2020.