Questions.
What happened in Guernica? Why did they destroy it?
Which one was the International reaction?
What did happen in the Northern Front?
Texts
Ante Dios y ante la Historia que nos han de juzgar, afirmo que durante tres horas y media aviones alemanes han bombardeado con una fiereza desconocida hasta aquí, a la población civil indefensa de la histórica ciudad de Guernica, reduciéndola a cenizas y persiguiendo con tiro de ametralladora a las mujeres y niños, que han perecido en gran número mientras huían locos de terror.
Mensaje del Lehendakari José Anatonio Aguirre, 29 de Abril
¡Miente Aguirre! Miente vilmente. En primer término, no hay aviación alemana ni extranjera en la España nacional. Hay aviación española... En segundo lugar, Guernica no ha sido incendiada por nosotros. La España de Franco no incendia. La tea incendiaria es monopolio de los incendiario de Irún, de los que han incendiado Éibar, de los que trataron de quemar vivos a los defensores del Alcázar de Toledo.
Luis Bolín en radio nacional 29 de Abril .
As you know, Guernica is a painting by Pablo Picasso, depicting the Nazi German bombing of Gernika, by twenty-eight bombers, on April 26, 1937. The attack killed between 250 and 1,600 people, and many more were injured.
A huge mural had already been commissioned from Picasso by the Spanish Republican government to decorate the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris International Exposition (the 1937 World's Fair in Paris). The bombing of Guernica provided Picasso with the inspiration for the mural which he had previously lacked.
Picasso said as he worked on the mural:
“ The Spanish struggle is the fight of reaction against the people, against freedom. My whole life as an artist has been nothing more than a continuous struggle against reaction and the death of art. How could anybody think for a moment that I could be in agreement with reaction and death? ... In the panel on which I am working, which I shall call Guernica, and in all my recent works of art, I clearly express my abhorrence of the military caste which has sunk Spain in an ocean of pain and death."
Is Art a way to fight for ideals? Does it help changing anything?
What's your opinion?
An interesting Fieldtrip
Visit to Gernika
Museum of Peace in Gernika & the researching center of 'Gernika Gogoratuz'
http://www.peacemuseumguernica.org/en/initiate/homeeng.php
http://www.gernikagogoratuz.org/
