Guernica

This is the famous painting "Guernica" by Pablo Picasso. Guernica is a small town located about forty-five minutes west of Bilbao. Even though it is very small, this basque town has a lot of stories to tell. On the 26th of April in 1937, it was bombed by a number of German, Italian and Spanish aircrafts. From the year 1936-1939 Spain was involved in a civil war. The monarchy against the aspiring dictator Franco. Franco was a strong believer in expelling people from Spain who weren't Spanish and all languages other than Spanish. He enlisted the help of the Germans and Italians to overtake Spain.

Right now, I live in the autonomic community (kind of like states) of Pais Vasco - the basque country. There are three provinces in France, the autonomic community of Navarra (capital: Pamplona), and Pais Vasco - called Euskal Herria - that all speak the language Basque. They aren't necessarily much different than the Spaniards, however they speak a different language and therefore they were a major target for Franco.

Guernica was well known for their traditional basque pride and although it was a small town and served little threat to the large army of Franco they were bombed. They lost a lot of people in the bombing because it was market day and everyone was out of their houses getting food and had little time to run to their small bomb shelters closer to the mountains. Now, the city has been reconstructed and is very much the same small town as it was before.

These pictures show one of the most important symbols in Guernica. In the olden days, the basque people would get together and discuss politics beneath the "Guernica tree". Nowadays their governement buliding is actually just to the left of where the tree stands - not the one behind it. The tree now is one of the great, great, etc, grandkids of the very first tree of Guernica.

In the first flag picture, the two flags in the middle are the Spanish flag (red and yellow) and the basque flag. The basque flag is shown more closely in the second photo.

This is where the old market once stood, a new one in it's place. I think market day is still Monday, so there was no one selling food and no tables were set up.

A traditional basque pastry thing... that I don't remember the name off... but it was really yummy and you can get them in chocolate too.

La Iglesia de Santa Maria... According to rumor, a bomb came right through the roof and didn't explode and the people inside were kept safe.

Well, that's all for Guernica! Thanks for reading! Herman wasn't in any of the photos in case y'all didn't notice. He was left at home for the day...

Next week: Who knows?