Museu Memorial de l'Exili

The Exile Memorial Museum (MUME), located in La Jonquera, is a space dedicated to historical memory that commemorates the exile caused by the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). The museum stands out as a benchmark among Girona museums for its work in preserving and disseminating the history of the Republican exile.

The MUME aims to explain and promote understanding of the 1939 exodus and to explore all the consequences of that historical event: the internment of refugees in French concentration camps, the deportation and separation of families across France, the departure of thousands of refugees to Latin America, the deportation of many exiles to Nazi extermination camps, and the struggle that many of them later undertook to recover freedom in Spain.

The museum presents, with historical rigor and a clear educational purpose, the diverse and turbulent journeys taken by tens of thousands of people during that period of exile.

The fate of exiled people helps us understand our past and, at the same time, reflect on the humanitarian crises of our own time, led by millions of refugees from across the five continents who, for various reasons, have been forced to leave their homes.

At MUME, we approach the understanding of exile —both its past and its legacy in the present— through multiple resources: the permanent exhibition, temporary exhibitions, the Art and Memory program, the visit to the Canta-Mina Negrín mine in La Vajol, the Walter Benjamin Colloquium in Portbou, as well as guided itineraries through key memory sites across the Girona region and Northern Catalonia.

Surroundings

La Jonquera, located in the Alt Empordà region, is a strategic point near the border with France, making it an emblematic place to understand the magnitude of the 1939 exile.

Its location allows visitors to better contextualize the historical events related to the Republican exile.