The Guernica Journals - "Survivors" report....





The Journal of a survivor


27 of April 1937,
“What time is it?” I take a look at the clock. “12.00” It’s already afternoon. I woke up with a heavy headache. Cold sweat rolls down my face. I can feel my body warm. My arm hurts, it might be broken. Someone covered me with a fabric blanket. I take a look at my surroundings. I’m in a room with hundred others. Some of them passed away so some boys help the nurses carry their dead bodies out of here. We need room for more wounded and sick people. I push myself to remember, but all that comes to my mind is a blank, a very dark one. A nurse notices that my head aches and she lays a hot towel on my forehead. It calms my spirit for a while and I close my eyes.
And just then all the images, all the moments come back like flashbacks...


26 of April 1937,
It was around 4 pm the previous day that I was reading the newspaper to find out about Franco and his men. We all deep down know that this nationalist dictator wants to occupy Bilbao as it cooperates closely with the democratic government of Madrid, but no one knows exactly when the next hit will come. We’re just quietly and patiently waiting digging our graves. We hope for the resistance to come and with hope in mind we hear the awful sound of the sirens, which still echoes within me.
I immediately grab my coat and worry for nobody as my children have been safely sent to live with a French family in Marseilles and my wife has recently died. I rush to the door and put my hand on the cool handle. I hear people screaming and children crying on the other side of the door. Now I’m afraid to open it. I’m afraid of what I’ll face. My blood freezes, but I have to go out. And my body responds to my desire.
The situation outside is horrible. The 5.000 Basque people that live here in Guernica are forced to abandon their houses in the terrifying sound of the sirens. They are all running with a desperate look on their faces. The sun hasn’t gone down yet, but it’s dark and cloudy as if the weather is also conspiring against us. The ground is shaking and I come to recognize the annoying sound of the airplanes. I’m almost at the entrance of my basement. I get in at the last minute. The clock hand turns to 4:30. I’m standing still, feeling the vibrations of the first bomb dropped by the first aircraft. Twelve more follow. Time passes slowly… silently… It’s cold and wet down here. I feel my head heavy. My body is shaking. I fear that more airplanes are coming.
Indeed, around 5 o’ clock new explosions are heard again and again. They’re infinite, unlimited. I wish it was just a dream. And it is! It is a nightmare, a real one. At 6 o’ clock the shelling stops and I hear people calling me and the other survivors.
I open the door hesitantly. The atmosphere is dull and I can see nothing but smoke and dust. The picture that follows is obnoxious. Most of the once beautiful and colorful buildings of Guernica have turned into ruins burnt in flames. On the roads lie the dead bodies of those that couldn’t make it. Some of them all alone or mutilated and others accompanied by their once loved ones. I collapse. A soldier finds me. He softly puts his fingers to my neck. He wants to check if I’m alive. I have no power to talk anymore so I just make a sigh and I lie there… on the road with the rest of the bodies. We all died that day. But some of us were reborn like the phoenix.


26 of April 1987,
The years have passed and the incident was never forgotten. That day there were approximately 7.000 people in the town. 1.654 people died while 889 were seriously injured. Franco’s, Hitler’s and Mussolini’s secrets about “Operation Rugen” came to surface. The town of Guernica was bombed just because it was the centre of Basque people who resisted Franco’s ideas. Guernica was also the location of a Spanish weapons manufacturer, which had been a supplier of firearms to the Spanish military and police forces since 1912. However, the saddest thing of all is that the German and Italian people used Guernica to test their bombs for the war that was to happen (World War II).
Maybe one day people will learn from their mistakes.

Πηγές:
Researched and written by Christine Vlachopoulou


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