Themes
Second World War [2 resultados]
| Document | Piece | Otros temas del fragmento | Sumario |
| II-110b | A01 | civil war | Introduction.(02:00”) He was born near to Bilbao in 1931 but at the age of five he had to leave that place. First, the went to Bilbao and leaving his mother there, they went on to Santander. From there they took a coal ship and arrived to Bordel. They went from there to Euskal Herria, to Donibane Garazi. They three brothers went together. His mother went from Bilbao to Santander and from there to Normandy.The Moroccans were the first to enter Bilbao. Later the Germans were also there, precisely those ones who had bombed Gernika and that area.When they entered his house in Franco’s time, perhaps because there was a Basque flag (the ikurriña) over the entrance, they threw everything into the street. The same thing happened in the house of his grandparents. They arrived in Donibane Garazi on the day of San Juan. Six children arrived to the Ciudadela (The Citadel). There were some five hundred children already there. To look after them there were doctors and nurses and teachers and so on. The youngest were like him, about five years old and the oldest about seventeen. When Franco came into the city, Aguirre, who was the president of Euskadi, organized a mass evacuation of children and adults from Euskal Herria. He and his brother were two and a half years in the Ciudadela. Those who had spent time there, now met once a year for a meal together.(14:30”) During the period of the war some 34,000 people left Euskal Herria for Europe and even some children were sent to Russia.(15:45”) The Ciudadela was not a comfortable place, there was neither light nor water. In the time of the Germans it was a prison. The small children could study in Basque and in Spanish. He was later in Getaria and there he studied in the first Basque language school. In the Ciudadela there was no cruel treatment and he had a big brother there too.The Gernika bombing took place on the 26th of April, 1937 and they arrived to Donibane in June of 1937 so that he was still in the town. Those scenes remain in the memory of a child and even now, when he hears a siren, he remembers that day. |
| II-110b | A02 | (22:11") In 1939 the War against the Germans began. They were in the casino in Getaria. When the police entered he was with a relation. He does not know where the family went nor does he know who brought him to Miarritz where his mother was. That is the only thing he remembers about the War with the Germans.In his childhood he saw very little of his mother. His father was already dead. But he had his grandparents as his parents. He returned to Bilbao with his brother. The years 1940 and 1941 were very hard. But thanks to his grandparents they never lacked for something to eat. |