There is shrapnel on the rear facade of the Royal Post Office , in the Puerta del Sol; bullet impacts on the monument to Doctor Federico Rubio y Gali, in Parque del Oeste. In Asturias there are forts; In the waters of Malaga, there still lies a cargo ship sunk by an Italian submarine. This last finding was not expected by the creators of the app Vestiges of the Civil War , an interactive map whose objective is "to consolidate a complete catalog of vestiges that can be easily consulted by anyone", according to those responsible.
"It is surprising to receive vestiges of Equatorial Guinea and from outside our borders, because also during the war interesting events took place in various countries. For example, in the app the study where Picasso painted Guernica in Paris in 1937", explain historian Daniel Rodríguez and computer scientist José Ignacio Naranjo, the brains behind this collaborative application.
One of the forts of Parque del Oeste, in Madrid
In it, anyone can add points related to the war on the world map. "It happened to me visiting Asturias looking for places and not being able to locate some and that, when launching the app, those sites have been entered by users. It would have come in handy back in the day," admits Naranjo.
Everything arose, in fact, from mere personal curiosity: "I am not an amateur with technical knowledge, but I am interested in the history of the streets where I live, so, thanks to the information provided by historians, archaeologists and groups of study of the Civil War in social networks, I discovered that Madrid, my city, has a lot of vestiges that have survived to this day . On the other hand, although there is a bibliography on the subject, I have not found a centralized place to find all the remains, so it seemed like a good idea to facilitate the dissemination of this part of our history", continues the expert.
The catalog of searchable places, which was launched with some 300 references introduced by its creators Based on research published in books, blogs or social networks, it is growing "at a good pace", in the words of its creators. Not surprisingly, it has been one of the most downloaded apps in recent weeks. Of course, not all the data that is entered becomes part of the map: "Users upload places, but they are not published until we review them , to ensure that the vestige applies. For it to be activated, it must meet at least one of the four criteria that we have to consider it of interest in the app"
Not only is the vestige named; information is also offered on the role he had in the contest
The criteria to which Naranjo refers include that the place contains constructions used in the Civil War, that it is related to some event that occurred during the war and that it exists -or no longer exists, but its location is known- and that there are visible marks of the clashes. "These criteria are not static, and we are already thinking about expand the casuistry so that the application can include more varied traces that, until now, have not entered ", continues the computer scientist, who also plans, together with his colleague, to introduce new improvements.
"We have some ideas in our heads, and also users contact us with their experience and it helps us to get the app on track. Unfortunately, our time to implement new features is very limited, so we prefer not to create expectations until we have the news ready to publish. Yes I can say, because we had already made it public, that we want to make the app have a photo camera that allows you to take a current photo and overlay a photo of the same place during the war , in order to produce a montage mixing both worlds," Naranjo told Traveler.es.