Documentation of the 6th Workshop Forum of the “Network of Intergenerational Learning in Europe” (NIGEL) Grundtvig Lernpartnerschaft in Guernika / the Basque Country (Spain) from February 20th to 22nd, 2006
The 6th workshop forum as part of the NIGEL learning partnership took place in Guernika in the Basque Country due to an invitation from the Guernika Gogoratuz Peace Research Centre. Several Spanish participants, young students from Germany and Switzerland, and older students from England as well as the contact people and several employees of the OWEN German partner organisation and the “Dialog der Generationen” project office In my opinion, the enrichment gained from meeting people from different countries and generations is a prerequisite for European learning. participated in the meeting. The subject focused on “remembrance work.” The two-day, intergenerational exchange enabled a unified remembrance of historic events. It quickly became clear that despite cultural and national differences, biographical common ground, for example, memories of the Second World War, connected the participants.
Photographer:
Kinga Rytau-Jankowski
Guernika is in northern Spain, 33 km east of Bilbao. In April 1937, Spain was in a state of civil war. On April 26, 1937, the airborne German Condor Legion bombed Guernika. They employed an aerial warfare strategy that was later systematically practiced during the Second World War. The bombs were targeted at civilians. In addition, the resistance of the Basques, who were demanding autonomy for their country was to be crushed. Guernika was completely destroyed during the aerial attack and hundreds of people were killed. After Franco’s troops occupied the city, it was forbidden to speak about the bombing in public. The perpetrators denied responsibility and accused the Red and Separatist Basques of having committed the crime. I also did not ask the really interesting questions due to (perhaps exaggerated) consideration. How do you manage not to hate the Spanish? What was it like in the 50s? You meet people who venerate Franco every day, how do you deal with this? Today the survivors still make an issue of reporting their memories in order to transmit them to future generations so that the atrocity will not be forgotten. The historical background and the encounter with the survivors of the Spanish Civil War and the bombing of Guernika by the German Air Force gave the participants detailed insight into Spanish history.
2/20/06
On the first day we drove to Elgeta, where several survivors shared their memories of being taken by Franco’s troops and
I find the remembrance work with contemporary witnesses very important because they can impart a real impression of historical events. They give the horrible events, which can hardly be imagined from an abstract description in a history book, a human face. their terror, their memories of war, loss of family members and friends, fear, and deep sorrow. In that small town, 30 kilometres from Guernika, the corpses of people who had been murdered during the Spanish Civil War were unearthed in June 2004. The contemporary witnesses showed us a house behind which six bodies were buried, and told us about the horrible events and their years of silence.
We returned to Guernika in the afternoon and visited a group of young people who were squatting the former ASTRA armoury. They organise concerts, show films and have other events in order to create a cultural alternative to the rather bleak cultural program in Guernika. The way in which the teenagers stubbornly, peacefully, and very deliberately worked to obtain the building (a squatted former armoury) for cultural work made a lasting impression on all of us. The goal of the group is to create an intergenerational cultural centre for everyone who is culturally active. The young, peaceful rebels told us that they had already had to leave the factory several times upon being requested to by the police, but they always came back and tried to continue their work to allow Guernika to live up to its name as a “city of culture.” In the abandoned rooms of the armoury there are still old books, documents, and lists from the time that the factory was still in operation.
Photographer:
Kinga Rytau-Jankowski
In the late afternoon, a history and biography workshop called "Transmission of Remembrance" took place, conducted by Dr. Marina Grasse. It was about our historical memory, meaning imparted and experienced history. It became clear to many of the participants that historical developments are closely connected to our biographical progress and experiences as well as to those of our families. The participants also noticed that although their layers of life were very different, the course of life for the families were strongly characterized by the war and that there are Ich habe verstanden, dass das Thema "Erinnerung" für viele Leute eine wichtige Rolle spielt. parallels in the way in which we remember and in what we remember. This becomes especially apparent in the reports of some of the participants. A thoughtful mood arose among the participants, and influenced subsequent conversations well into the evening.
2/21/06
On the second day we visited the Peace Museum (Museo de la Paz de Guernika), which was founded in 1998 and exhibits pieces that had been held by private people for decades. Publications and documents on the Spanish Civil War and the bombardment can be seen there. The visit to the museum made a strong impression on most of us.
The design of the glass floor in the museum, with pieces of the ruins and personal objects of probable victims, made a big impression on me.
Above all, the room where a bombardment was imitated. After the museum, we visited the Guernika Gogoratuz Peace Research Centre - Centro de Investigación por la Paz – which was founded in 1987 on the 50th anniversary of the bombing and is devoted especially to peace education science. The employees of the centre introduced us to the association’s work and told us about their activities. Afterward, Juan Gutierrez, the founder and former director of the peace research centre, guided us through Guernika. Despite the pouring rain, he was able to direct our attention to the history of the town with unbelievable stories. Nobody really paid attention to the bad weather.
The most special part of the two-day meeting was that we experienced a part of Spanish history directly. The small Basque city that is no different from other small cities at first glance revealed its sad, painful past to us step by step. The “Condor Legion” bombed Guernika, the Basque city. The air attack was mainly targeted at the civil population. It remains unclear how many dead and wounded there were after the bombing. Some of the survivors found time for our group and met us in Guernika and Elegata. The best way to absorb and understand history is to communicate directly with the people who experienced it. They told us about being bombed by the Condor Legion, about their homes being destroyed, their childhood, and their former lives. This all happened almost 70 years ago, and we saw tears in the eyes of the storytellers as if the events had occurred yesterday. The survivors of these terrible events were not angry or hateful. They told us their stories in the hope that this would prevent forgetting.
They reminded us of the senseless violence against the civil population so that future generations would learn from their story and hand down their peaceful message of reconciliation with the painful past. They thanked us for our interest in their history, and said that we would always be welcome there.
That was a moving moment for our German participants because they were from Germany, the country that had bombed the city. The survivors not only shared a piece of their history with us. They showed us that it is possible to deal with a painful past peacefully.
Kinga Rytau-Jankowski