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Gernika is a symbol of resistance and peace and the permanent commitment of fighting against fascism in all of it faces.
Gernika is a town in the province of Biscay, in the Basque Country. The town of Gernika is one part of the municipality of Gernika-Lumo.
On April 26, 1937, Gernika was bombed by Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe, in one of the first aerial bombings. The attack inspired Pablo Picasso's painting Guernica, depicting his outrage at the attack.
The village is situated in the region of Busturialdea, in the valley of the Oka river. The river ends in an estuary that gives its name to the village of Gernika. Its mouth is known as Urdaibai's estuary's heart.
The town of Gernika was founded by Count Tello on April 28, 1366, at the intersection of the road from Bermeo to Durango with the road from Bilbao to Elantxobe and Lekeitio. The strategic importance of the site was increased by the fact that it lay on a major river estuary, where vessels could dock at the port of Suso.
On April 26, 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, Gernika was the scene of the Bombing of Guernica by the Condor Legion of Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe and the Italian Aviazione Legionaria.
According to official Basque figures, 1,654 civilians were killed, but German sources report a round figure of 300 civilians killed in the bombing, according to the German Bundeswehr Magazine.
The raid was requested by Francisco Franco to aid in his overthrowing the Basque Government and the Spanish Republican government. The town was devastated, though the Biscayan assembly and the Oak of Gernika survived.
More information: History
The Bombing of Gernika, which went on continuously for three hours, is considered the beginning of the Luftwaffe doctrine of terror bombing civilian targets in order to demoralize the enemy.
Pablo Picasso painted his Gernika painting to commemorate the horrors of the bombing and René Iché made a violent sculpture the day after the bombing. It has inspired musical compositions by Octavio Vazquez (Gernika Piano Trio), René-Louis Baron, and Lenny White, and poems by Paul Eluard (Victory of Gernika), and Uys Krige (Nag van die Fascistiese Bomwerpers). There is also a short film from 1950, by Alain Resnais, titled Gernika.
Celebrations were staged in 1966 to mark the 600th anniversary of the founding of the town. As part of these celebrations, a statue of Count Tello, made by local sculptor Agustín Herranz, was set up in the Fueros Square.
Gernika is historically the seat of the parliament of the province of Biscay, whose executive branch is located in nearby Bilbao.
In prior centuries, Lumo had been the meeting place of the traditional Biscayan assembly, Urduña and chartered towns like Gernika were under the direct authority of the Lord of Biscay, and Enkarterri and the Durango area had separate assemblies. All would hold assemblies under local big trees.
As time passed, the role of separate assemblies was superseded by the single assembly in Gernika, and by 1512, its oak, known as the Gernikako Arbola, became symbolic of the traditional rights of the Basque people as a whole.
The trees are always renewed from their own acorns. One of these trees, the Old Tree, lived until the 19th century, and may be seen, as a dry stump, near the assembly house. A tree planted in 1860 to replace it died in 2004 and was in turn replaced; the sapling that had been chosen to become the official Oak of Gernika is also sick so the tree will not be replaced until the earth around the site has been restored to health.
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A hermitage was built beside the Gernikako Arbola to double as an assembly place, followed by the current house of assembly, Biltzar Jauregia in Basque, built in 1826.
On April 26, 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, the town was razed to the ground by German aircraft belonging to the Condor Legion, sent by Hitler to support Franco's troops. For almost four hours bombs rained down on Gernika in an experiment for the blitzkrieg tactics and bombing of civilians seen in later wars.
In 1987, the 50th anniversary of the bombing was commemorated as the town hosted the Preliminary Congress of the World Association of Martyr Cities.
1988 saw the setting up of the monument Gure Aitaren Etxea, by Basque sculptor Eduardo Chillida, and in 1990 Large Figure in a Shelter, by British sculptor Henry Moore, was erected beside it. These monuments are symbolic of Gernika-Lumo as a city of peace.
As part of the Symbol for Peace movement, Gernika has twinned with several towns, including Berga (Catalonia-1986), Pforzheim (Germany-1988) and Boise, Idaho (United States-1993). The twinning agreements include co-operation in the fields of culture, education and industry.
After sixty-one years, in a declaration adopted on April 24, 1999, the German Parliament formally apologized to the citizens of Gernika for the role the Condor Legion played in bombing the town. The German government also agreed to change the names of some German military barracks named after members of the Condor Legion. By contrast, no formal apology to the city has ever been offered by the Spanish government for whatever role it may have played in the bombing.
More information: The Conversation
Pablo Picasso
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