Eighty years later, the Nazi war crime in Guernica still matters - The grim anniversary of the bombing is a reminder of humanity's continuing capacity for evil

GUERNICA | Kirkus Reviews

Obviously, from the title of this debut novel, you know something horrible is going to happen but I was so mesmerized by the stories of the larger than life passionate and proud Basque characters that when it happens it almost took me by surprise. Monday was Guernica's market day, and many of its inhabitants were congregated in the center of town. When the main bombardment began the roads were already full of debris and the bridges leading out of town destroyed, and they were unable to escape.Expelled from the city, Steer took a British Royal Navy destroyer to the Basque port city of Bilbao in January 1937. A few months later, on April 28, he published a bombshell story that horrified Europeans and Americans alike. Steer and a small group of foreign journalists had rushed to nearby Guernica after hearing that the historic town had been decimated on the afternoon of April 26 — a market day.

Guernica by Karen Robards | Goodreads The Girl from Guernica by Karen Robards | Goodreads

Granell, Eugenio Fernándes, Picasso's Guernica: the end of a Spanish era (Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1981) ISBN 0-8357-1206-0, ISBN 978-0-8357-1206-4 I do not think this is a spoiler, but I am going to share something from the end of the book, so if you're of the type that doesn't want to know ANYTHING, then I will warn: In 1992, the painting was moved from the Museo del Prado to a purpose-built gallery at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, both in Madrid, along with about two dozen preparatory works. [44] This action was controversial in Spain, since Picasso's will stated that the painting should be displayed at the Prado. However, the move was part of a transfer of all of the Prado's collections of art after the early 19th century to other nearby buildings in the city for reasons of space; the Reina Sofía, which houses the capital's national collection of 20th-century art, was the natural place to move it to. For me, a historical fiction novel must have characters that are at least as strong as the event around which the narrative centers. Assuming history is poignant enough to tell its own story is risky, and I'm sorry to say that in this case the risk didn't pay off.

Van Hensbergen, Gijs (2005) Guernica p. 83 Bloomsbury Publishing At Google Books. Retrieved 4 November 2013 The picture was finished about mid-June. Hundreds of thousands of exhibition-goers wandered by, looking on it as a wall decoration, just as Europe wandered by the human drama of the Spanish Civil War—as if it were a matter concerning only the inhabitants of the peninsula. They disregarded the warning, did not understand that democracy on the whole continent was at stake. Picasso painted Guernica at his home in Paris in response to the 26 April 1937 bombing of Guernica, a town in the Basque Country in northern Spain that was bombed by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy at the request of the Spanish Nationalists. Upon completion, Guernica was exhibited at the Spanish display at the 1937 Paris International Exposition and then at other venues around the world. The touring exhibition was used to raise funds for Spanish war relief. [5] The painting soon became famous and widely acclaimed, helping to bring worldwide attention to the Spanish Civil War that took place from 1936 to 1939. First in an intensive series of sketches and studies, and then on the giant canvas itself, Picasso’s tableau of horror, with its contorted faces and agonized animals, rapidly took shape; in just 35 days, the thing was done. For any painter, it was an improbable feat. For an artist in his mid-50s whose life was in disarray and who had, just two years earlier, almost stopped painting altogether, it was an astonishing, athletic act of self-reinvention. An honest, compassionate priest, a good person. And some of the stuff is so amusing. Two wommen who were friends and lived across the passageway from each other had clotheslines between their houses. The author says:

Guernica, By Dave Boling | The Independent | The Independent

Here was Guernica’s true debut. The war that provoked it had already been lost, but another, more urgent one was just beginning. It was in Barr’s New York show—not the Paris Expo in 1937 or any of the Spanish relief shows that had come after it—that Guernica was finally recognized as a definitive statement about the horrors of war and the freedoms that were now being brutally crushed on the continent. As Barr put it, “Picasso has spoken of world catastrophe in a language not immediately intelligible to ordinary man.”

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After the civil war he and Jay Allen continued trying to help Spanish refugees and when American finally entered World War II, Herbert volunteered and ended up in North Africa. After the war he bought a pile of army surplus radio equipment and created Radio Tangier and stayed on waiting for the day when Franco would fall. During that time he befriended lots of Spanish Republicans. He also became a great expert on the Falangists as well and through endless communication with them came to be recognised as an expert by them as well. This novel bring to life the Spanish Civil war and the bombing of Guernica by telling the story of people whose lives represent what others actually experienced during this time. Boling's characters became so much more than 2 dimensional, they became living, breathing characters in my own life. I adored Justo and was touched by his relationship with Mariangeles; was captivated by Miren; felt Miguel's joy and anguish; and just wanted to protect Angelina.