Remembering Guernica

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he 26th of April may be celebrated throughout the world owing to various reasons. But for the people of Basque town, it would forever remain as one of the most lamenting days where the whole town had suffered the horrific tragedy. Thanks to Pablo Picasso, who immortalized the date through his painting, which stands as a symbol warning humanity against the suffering and devastation of war.

According to the Basque government, the Guernica bombing, which is considered as one of the first raids on a defenseless civilian population by a modern air force, had killed some 1,654 people.

Nazi Minister Hermann Göring planned the annihilation of the small town in 1937 as a gift for Hitler’s birthday, which was on April 20th. However, due to logistics problem Göring’s grand birthday treat had to be delayed until April 26th.

The attack on Guernica, besides Hitler’s birthday gift, was also a tactical military and aeronautical experiment to test the Luftwaffe’s ability to destroy an entire city, thereby crushing the morale of its people. The legion’s chief of staff, Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, had very meticulously engineered the operation to maximize human casualties, and above all deaths.

At around 4:30 pm past afternoon, a brief bombing was that was enough to send much of the population into air-raid shelters. After few moments, when Guernica’s citizens came out shelters to rescue the wounded, a second longer wave of bombing began. This time, bombing trapped those people in the town center.

After there was no escape, the low-flying planes strafed the streets with machine-gun fire. Those who still manage to escape the torture were either burnt by the flames or suffocated to death due to the lack of oxygen. Three hours of coordinated air strikes leveled the city and killed over 1,500 civilians.

Richthofen had described the operation as “a complete technical success” in his diary. Hitler was so thrilled that two years later he wanted the same bombing techniques, but at a greater scale, on Warsaw, which consequently set off World War II.

‘Guernica’ by Picasso

Picasso was at that time commissioned to put off a mural for the Spanish Republican Pavilion at the upcoming Paris World’s Fair. He had no idea until then how a bombed town looks like. However, after reading the account of an eye-witness of the Guernica bombings, he started preliminary sketching.

The painting is believed to be a response to the bombing of Guernica. Upon completion, ‘Guernica’ was displayed around the world in a brief tour, when it became famous and widely acclaimed for its anti- war message. It is also believed to have helped bring worldwide attention to the Spanish Civil War.