The ship "Winnipeg" departed on August 4, 1939 from the river port of Pauillac, in France, thanks, in part, to the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. Driven by the Republican cause, Neruda actively participated in the work necessary to charter the ship and obtained the necessary funding to pay for the tickets. After a month of crossing and after a first stop at the port of Arica, the "Winnipeg" arrived in Valparaiso, where most of the passage disembarked.

During her stay in Santiago to remember the Spaniards who were part of that humanitarian expedition, the minister participated in the tribute to the artist of Catalan origin, Roser Bru, who suffered the punishment of exile, first in France and then in Chile, where she arrived with her family at just 16 years old aboard the "Winnipeg". In 2015 she received the National Prize of Plastic Arts of Chile and, in 2018, the Gold Medal for the Merit of Fine Arts of Spain, which the minister has delivered this Monday to her daughters, due to the delicate state of health of the artist, in an event held at the headquarters of the former National Congress.

Along with Bru, other illustrious figures whose contribution to Chile is today unquestionable traveled, such as the playwright José Ricardo Morales, the painter José Balmes, the critic Antonio Romera, the typographer Mauricio Amster or the historian Leopoldo Castedo. Along with them, hundreds of exiles of very different trades but equal social responsibility. The vital trajectories of all of them, the minister stressed, undoubtedly contributed to the cultural, social and economic enrichment of Chile.

Delgado has pointed out that the Government has undertaken the task of settling "the outstanding debt of the State with the Republican exile", which has resulted in tributes in the main destinations of the Spanish Republican exile such as Argelès-sur-Mer, Oran, Algiers, Moscow, Mexico, Paris and also in Mauthausen, in whose camp about 4,400 Spaniards died.

The minister has also visited the Cultural Center Mapocho Station, where she has discovered a plaque commemorating the 80th anniversary of the arrival of the passengers of the "Winnipeg'" who, after the landing in Valparaiso, traveled by train to this old station, settling in the capital and starting a new life here. Delgado recalled the affection with which they were then received and thanked the Chilean people for their generosity "in granting a second chance to so many men and women, as well as hope and future to those whom fascism wanted to condemn to oblivion and exodus."