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George Steer, whose report in The Times brought the true story of the raid to the world |
Peace from the ashes of destruction
Gernika is infamous as the place where civilians were targeted by German bombers. Seventy years on, Dan Carrier pays his respects to the small Basque town
IT is Monday morning in the Basque town of Gernika and the market place is bustling. Market day is the highlight of the week – a chance to trade, greet friends, share a beer or a glass of wine, sample produce. It seems like any other market day in any other provincial Spanish town.
But Gernika’s market day is famous for a reason that has nothing to do with the fruit and vegetables on offer.
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the bombing of the town, an outrage committed by the German Condor Legion where the Luftwaffe first tested the use of air strikes on such a scale against civilians. It was a Monday, market day, and it meant the town was full.
As I wander among the stalls, I try to imagine the horror these people’s grandparents must have experienced as planes swooped up the pretty valley and unloaded their deadly cargo.
Every week the traders travel in from the surrounding hills on buses and in ramshackle vans groaning under the weight of their produce.
The local countryside has a perfect climate for growing – lots of rain, yet still warm and sunny, and everyone has their own vegetable patch.
The streets and balconies are decked with tomato plants, while front gardens are turned over to orderly rows of beans and potatoes. It is not all for home consumption – the marketplace has old folk sitting behind trestle tables with bunches of carrots and onions, boxes of tomatoes, garlic bulbs and hot peppers strung together, grown to supplement pensions.
The fact this nondescript town was the target for the bombing of a civilian population has left a legacy of political activism within Gernika. Even the spelling of the name is important. The townsfolk spell it Gernika, and paint out road signs throughout the region that point the way to the Castillian name of Guernica, as a protest against rule from Madrid, a city whose government is inextricably linked in their minds with the hated Franco regime.
Each night fly-posters appear. They come from a host of left-wing parties, keeping the Spanish republican ideal of the 1930s alive. Everywhere you go there is politically motivated art, the narrow streets with balcony-decked homes all displaying Basque flags and Red motifs of various socialist groups.
Even the civic authorities are politically aware. A bust of George Steer, The Times journalist whose report on the bombing brought the news to the world, is in the centre of a square named after him.
My tour of the town took me to see Picasso’s painting, done for the Paris Pavilion exhibition in 1937. It is a copy: the original has never been to Gernika. Madrid politicians believe it would raise political hackles in the Basque area. Instead, money was raised to have a copy cast in ceramics and placed on a slope overlooking the town.
While I was there, 94-year-old Jack Jones, former head of the Transport and General Workers’ Union and International Brigader who fought against Franco and was injured at the Battle of the Ebro, south of Gernika, stepped out of a car. He too had come to see the town, rekindle memories and gain a sense of what he had fought for.
Elsewhere, there are friezes celebrating the town’s historic role in Basque self-determination. The Basque government met for centuries under an oak tree in a nearby park. Miraculously, the tree survived the 1937 bombing and even though it has now been pronounced dead, this potent symbol of democracy still draws hundreds of visitors.
To mark the 70th anniversary, a conference brought speakers from around the world.
Gernika has dubbed itself a “Town of Peace”, and includes within its tight boundaries (it is less than a quarter of the size of Camden, geographically and population) the Gernika Peace Museum, a Basque Cultural Centre, a Peace Research Centre and the Park of European Nations, which boasts a Henry Moore sculpture and other 20th-century examples of modern art.
This summer, the town’s council drafted a declaration of the lessons they felt needed to be learned from Gernika’s experience. It is still not clear why Gernika was chosen as a target – at first it was even denied that the Franco forces were responsible, blame being laid on republicans who were supposed to have done it with land- mines to garner sympathy for their cause.
Roughly translated, it reads: “The bombing of a civilian population exceeds the logic of war, yet it is not surprising, because war breaks the bounds of all constraints – respect for human dignity.
“We cannot remember the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Gernika without recalling the victims of today’s wars and without reflecting on how to avoid those of tomorrow.
“We have to commit ourselves to peace because it is an ethical project, a human being’s principal and paramount project, man’s first duty.
“The ethical peace project demands unconditional commitment to dialogue and diplomatic routes. Dialogue is neither possible nor authentic if it lacks empathy and action against suffering, injustice and inequality, or a reaction before poverty, hunger and under development. It involves a commitment to the dignity of man, human rights and pluralism. It entails respect for difference and mutual acceptance.
“While even a single war exists, man will continue to have an issue pending, because he will not have managed to implement to the full his most transcendental, genuine and highest priority project – the ethical peace project.”
You only have to wander through the market in Gernika on a Monday to realise that such aspirations, although they may sound lofty, are essential. |
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