50 YEARS SINCE THE RESTORATION OF DEMOCRACY IN GREECE – THE DICTATORSHIPS OF SOUTHERN EUROPE: GREECE, SPAIN, PORTUGAL
“GUERNICA”
Market day in the streets of Guernica was interrupted when the bells of the Santa Maria church sounded the alarm that April 26, 1937 afternoon. People from the surrounding hills flooded the town square. “Every Monday was a celebration in Guernica,” says José Monasterio, an eyewitness to the bombing.
For over three hours, twenty-five or more of Germany’s best-equipped bombers, accompanied by at least twenty additional Messerschmitt and Fiat fighters, dropped one hundred thousand kilograms of high-explosive and incendiary bombs on the village, slowly and systematically reducing it to rubble.
News of the bombing spread like wildfire. Nationalists and Germans immediately denied any involvement. However, few were fooled by Franco’s protests of innocence. Faced with international condemnation for the massacre, Von Richthofen publicly claimed that the target was a bridge over the Mundaca river on the outskirts of the city, chosen to cut off democratic troops fleeing.
The bombing of Guernica marked the beginning of Franco’s fascist regime’s actions, and Picasso’s eponymous painting will always serve as a constant reminder of the war’s tragedies, an anti-war symbol, and an embodiment of peace.
The radio series “HISTORIAS MINIMAS“, a collaborative project with Radio Panik in Belgium, co-created by Thomas Sideris, presents a thematic triptych historical tribute to the dictatorships of Southern Europe that collapsed around the same period, marking fifty years since the restoration of democracy in Greece this summer.
The dictatorships of Southern Europe served as a catalyst for revolutionary popular movements, inspired art, and were reflected in it. Resistance during the years of brutal authoritarian regimes is a fundamental element of the heritage not only of the Southern peoples but of all European citizens.
Research/Documentation/Presentation: Thomas Sideris