The story of this place
On the afternoon of 26 April 1937, a market day, German Condor Legion and Italian bombers attacked Guernica, the spiritual capital of the Basque people, in support of Franco. Wave after wave dropped incendiary and high-explosive bombs and strafed fleeing civilians for over three hours; much of the town burned, and hundreds died. It was among the first deliberate aerial bombings of a civilian town, a rehearsal for the terror of World War II. Picasso, then painting for the Republic, transformed the horror into 'Guernica,' a monochrome scream of a canvas now in Madrid. The sacred Gernika oak, where Basque rights were sworn, survived nearby.