Writing and Testimony. Ruth Rewald and The Spanish Civil War

Abstract

A large group of women writers, journalists, and photographers from various countries went to the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), which aroused enormous international interest at the time, and they assumed considerable political and professional commitment during the conflict. Among them was Ruth Rewald (1906-1942), a German writer of children’s and young adult literature who, in early November 1937, travelled to Spain from Paris, where she was living in exile, to gather information and write a book about the situation of Spanish children in the war. During the four months she stayed in Spain, Ruth Rewald worked and lived at the Ernst Thälmann Children’s Home in La Moraleja, near Madrid, which housed around 80 orphaned children and victims of the war. There she learned first-hand about the ravages caused to the children by the war. These experiences and impressions resulted in various reports, articles, and features. After her return to Paris at the end of February 1938, she also wrote the novel Vier spanische Jungen, the only known book for young people about the Spanish Civil War. This essay analyzes the images of Republican Spain and the war that Ruth Rewald portrayed in her texts.