The Walter Benjamin Memorial Site. A future project for Portbou and the commemoration of Walter Benjamin
The Exile Memorial Museum Consortium is a public body constituted for the establishment and joint management, in the town of La Jonquera, of the Museum under this name, whose object is the exhibition, research, interpretation and dissemination of the historical events related to exiles. Moreover, the Consortium manages the Walter Benjamin Memorial Site, located in Portbou, whose main objectives are the study and promotion of the figure of the German philosopher Walter Benjamin, to tell the history of the Catalan Pyrenean border during the Second World War and the fostering of a critical commitment to freedom of thought faced with totalitarian systems.
Currently, the Walter Benjamin Memorial Site is an open project which regularly carries out activities dedicated to the figure of the German thinker, such as the annual seminars held every September in Portbou, guided tours of the town, and mountain excursions along the Walter Benjamin route. After some years of organisation, on 27th September 2009, on the occasion of the 69th anniversary of Walter Benjamin’s death, the project for the future Walter Benjamin Memorial Site was presented. Its headquarters will be in the old town hall in Portbou, with a surface area of around 800 m2 appropriately adapted. The first floor of this centre will house a permanent exhibition on the life of Walter Benjamin centred on his flight from Nazi Germany until his death in Portbou. It will also have a youth area, different spaces for cultural activity and a temporary exhibitions hall. The rest of the building will have an information point, a Walter Benjamin library and a memorial hostel for researchers interested in him. Funded by Portbou Town Council, the Memorial Democràtic of the Government of Catalonia and the European Union through its cross-border cooperation projects, the first phase of the reform of the first floor of the building is expected to be completed by late 2011, so that the Walter Benjamin Memorial Site can have a first hall open for the start of the following year.
For more information, please go to the website "Walter Benjamin a Portbou": http://walterbenjaminportbou.cat/
