GERNIKA, Spain-On the northern coast of Spain, the blue ocean tides flow into coastal towns – their red clay roofs baking in the June sun, their painted fishing boats bobbing on the waves – as the green mountains spread out across the horizon like open arms.
It’s easy here to drink wine, reclining around wooden tables and toasting your amigos who tell stories, pound their fists with passion on the white tablecloths, and laugh like it’s their highest calling in life. It is easy here to love life.
It’s hard to remember that more than 70 years ago, some of these towns were firebombed nearly out of existence.
On April 26, 1937, the Nazis – supported by the Spanish dictatorship – unhinged the locks on a most vicious Pandora’s box: the blitzkrieg. Wanting to test a new form of warfare – the annihilation of cities through bombing – the planes flew over this town of several hundred people and dropped bombs for three straight hours.
Perhaps you’ve seen the Picasso painting of the event (which he titled “Guernica,” the official Spanish spelling of the town’s name): mothers with eyes askew hold their dead children; body parts scatter the canvas as a mad bull charges; empty hands clutch the air. In warfare, the surrealism of Picasso is reality.