Gernika 1937-2007 eitb24 Multimedia Special

If you ever happen to visit Gernika, you can see little oak tiles with arrows placed in the stone walkways.  They point the way to the location of the Gernikako Arbola, the Tree which symbolizes the traditional freedoms, culture and government of the Basque people. In the middle ages, and probably much further back, Basque villages would hold assemblies under the biggest or oldest local tree.  In 1512 the great oak in Gernika became the location of Basque regional assembly. There has been more than one Tree of continuous lineage, but the fact that Basques protected the Gernikako Arbola with an armed guard during the bombing of Gernika in the Spanish Civil War is an indication of just how much the Tree, and Gernika, means to the Basque people.

Check out this awesome, informative look back at Gernika before, during and after the bombs.  A day-by-day military infographic,  memories of a Basque soldier (not in English, but a great video), a man exiled as a child to Belgium, sings a Basque song from his exile, and a virtual walkthrough of Gernika, then and now (nasty IE plugin required), which takes you to the Tree.  The infographic is particularly fine, i hope eitb keeps this on their site for a while.

Technorati Tags: Basque

Comments

[Keith]

Juana,
On Tuesday, the WSJ published an article about Euskera that dissed the language and also sort-of dissed EITB. Having been in Basque households a few times where the language is mixed with Spanish, English, and French as second-choice languages, I wonder how the criticism of the usefulness of the language in everyday life is at all justifiable. It seems that it works quite well in the Basque household. So I am at a loss to understand why this language could be consider quaint, obsolete, and/or useless.

See this BLOG posting that references this material (copyright) from WSJ (published Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2007)
http://tinyurl.com/2kdp7m or
http://21stcmb.typepad.com/bring_the_blog/2007/11/blog-podcast-di.html?referer=sphere_related_content

Ironically, they had to publish a correction on Thursday, too because they mistranslated several words in the original article. Hmmm? Does this prove their point? It makes ya think.
;-)

[Juana Moore]

That was kind of a neat blog post. i was the third person to comment, after the Basque and the Spaniard! The WSJ article i couldn't finish without paying, but i suppose i didn't need to raise my BP this morning anyway.

i think some of us from the States think we've missed something not being bilingual. i so suck at languages... i made a shot at Basque, but knew it was doomed unless i was living somewhere its in use.