 |
 |
‘Ara Llibres managed to gather together more than 60 girls named Elna in the Park of the Ciutadella on Sunday 8th June to take a photograph to send to the creator of the Elna maternity centre, Swiss national Elisabeth Eidenbenz, on her 95th birthday. In 2005, Ara Llibres published La maternitat d’Elna by Assumpta Montellà, in which the historian from Mataro revealed the history of the Swiss woman Elisabeth Eidenbenz, who between 1939 and 1944 saved the lives of 597 children – children of exiled Catalan and Spanish women who struggled in pitiful conditions in the Republican refugee camps of Sant Cebrià de Rosselló, Argelers and Ribesaltes and who were lucky enough to be taken into the maternity centre founded by Eidenbenz.
The gathering of Elnas coincides with the upcoming broadcast on Canal33 of the documentary El llegat de la Maternitat d’Elna, which is directed by Toni Espinosa and Assumpta Montellà and will be shown on 13th June at 10.55 pm. Next September, the history of Elna will also be the subject of musical theatre piece and next year filming will be completed on a film about the nurse directed by Manuel Huerga and provisionally entitled Les mares d’Elna.
More about La maternitat dElna
|
