The Bombing of Gernika

Book excerpt: The episode of Guernica, with all that it represents both in the military and the moral order, seems destined to pass into History as a symbol. A symbol of many things, but chiefly of that capacity for falsehood possessed by the new Machiavellism which threatens destruction to all the ethical hypotheses of civilization. A clear example of the use which can be made of untruth to degrade the minds of those whom one wishes to convince.(Foreign Wings over the Basque Country, 1937)Just after 4 p.m. aeroplanes threw nine bombs in the centre of the town. We were looking after the wounded when more aeroplanes appeared, which began to drop all kinds of bombs, incendiary and explosive. The wild beasts who piloted those aeroplanes, whenever they saw in the streets or outside the town a human figure, turned their machine-guns on it, sowing terror and death and killing not a few, among whom were women children, and old people. Such was the tragedy of Guernica, the truth of which I, Mayor of Guernica, affirm be-fore the whole world.Guernica has been burnt, but Guernica will not die. The tree will put out new green leaves every spring; her sons will return to her once more; once more her houses will be rebuilt, her churches hear again their hymns and prayers, and happy life abound in her streets. Guernica, the symbol of our national liberties, and the symbol too of the ferocity of international Fascism, cannot die for Euzkadi will not die."(Jose Labauria, Mayor of Gernika)