Guernica: Total war in 1937. Peace now. New Year Thoughts

We have reached the dark days in the northern hemisphere and I find my mood darkened by the news from the Middle East and the truths revealed about our own country by the political campaign.

But I remind myself that war ends; peace breaks out.

Guernica (or Gernika, in Basque) was the site of the first carpet bombing the world has ever known. In April, 1937, the German Air Force, at the request of the Spanish Nationalist Forces, bombed the political and cultural center of the Basques to rubble.  The bombing was instrumental in the final demise of the Spanish Republic and the end of the Spanish Civil War. Generalissimo Franco governed the country until 1974.

The deliberate bombing of civilians outraged the world.  Picasso was inspired to create his famous painting for the Paris World's Fair.  He would not allow the painting to be housed in Spain while the dictator was in power, and the painting stayed in the United States until 1976.

Now it is the featured masterpiece at the Reina Sophia Museum in Madrid; Franco is gone.  We had the pleasure of seeing the original last fall when we visited Madrid.

Picasso's painting Guernica

The painting captures the fright and confusion of the civilian population deliberately targeted on market day.  As we viewed it in Madrid, it was almost overwhelming.  It is grey, black, white. Twenty five feet by about eleven feet. It still captures the horror of the war in our age where civilians are routinely harmed and often targeted.

Now in Guernika

All is at peace.

Our last place we visited in our European odyssey was Bilbao and the Basque region, including Guernika. (Since it is an autonomous region, Basque is the first language and all signs are in Basque.)

Guernika has a pedestrian street lined with cafes.  On our visit on a sunny Sunday, we joined families out strolling together eating the traditional small dishes called pinxhos. 

The Basque parliament meets in their traditional location (just on the left side of the photo) in a hall surrounded by oak trees, their symbol.

I am soothed by the reminder that peace breaks out. Politics can end wars as well as start them.

My hope is that 2016 will be the year of peace for us all.

This is approximately the area shown in the above photo of the bombing.

The grounds of the parliament complex with the stump of the original oak symbolizing Basques.

Friends laughing.  Basque men still wear these berets.

People stroll in family groups and stop for pinxhos.

Cafes at the bomb site

Text and photos by Julianne.

Guernica painting photo from Wikipedia. Thanks. We were unable to capture it with our small cameras.