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Walter Benjamin’s Graveyard

By: Huw Lemmey

On the run from the Gestapo, Walter Benjamin committed suicide on the French-Spanish border in 1940. The place where he spent his last days now overlooks the most brutally policed border of the EU.

(JMN / Cover / Getty Images)

A little municipal cemetery sits on a cliff above Portbou, the first small fishing village on the Spanish side of the French-Spanish border. The village is nestled around a natural harbor, deep in a steep valley that seems to cut it off from both countries. Today, with both nations now members of the Schengen Area, […]

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A little municipal cemetery sits on a cliff above Portbou, the first small fishing village on the Spanish side of the French-Spanish border. The village is nestled around a natural harbor, deep in a steep valley that seems to cut it off from both countries. Today, with both nations now members of the Schengen Area, […]

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A little municipal cemetery sits on a cliff above Portbou, the first small fishing village on the Spanish side of the French-Spanish border. The village is nestled around a natural harbor, deep in a steep valley that seems to cut it off from both countries. Today, with both nations now members of the Schengen Area, […]

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A little municipal cemetery sits on a cliff above Portbou, the first small fishing village on the Spanish side of the French-Spanish border. The village is nestled around a natural harbor, deep in a steep valley that seems to cut it off from both countries. Today, with both nations now members of the Schengen Area, […]

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