The Basque History of the World - Mark Kurlansky [84]
—George Steer, THE TREE OF GUERNICA, 1938
But the correspondent, who termed chick peas “the yellow menace” complained that by January 1937 cat Bilbaíno was not the same anymore. There was no longer any salt or sherry and anyone who could find mushrooms ate them immediately.
People looked to the sky, not only fearing attacks but hoping that the long awaited planes of the Republican air force would come to save them. Steer was convinced that those planes would have saved Bilbao. But they had come from Barcelona and bad weather had forced them to land in French territory. The French, respecting the neutrality agreement, would not allow them to continue. But the enemy planes came and dropped bombs regularly.
Only the Soviet Union and Mexico were willing to supply weapons and they could no longer reach Bilbao. The British and French were not going to enter this civil war but after Guernica their sympathies, and especially public opinion, were clearly with the Basques. Aguirre appealed through the Catholic Church for other countries to shelter Basque children. Britain agreed to take 4,000 children. France placed no limits at all on Basque refugees. These two countries, together with Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland, Mexico, and the Soviet Union, took in a combined total of more than 20,000 Basque children. The British Royal Navy assisted with the evacuation. The children were all vaccinated before they left, and each child was served coffee, milk, and a fried egg as they made their way to sea, saluted by the mournful honks of fishing boat horns. In England the children were installed near an airfield and needed to be constantly reassured that the incoming aircraft were friendly. At the sound of an airplane engine they would begin shouting “bombas!”
Unlike most of the loyalist governments in Spain, the Basque government functioned reasonably well, even in a democratic spirit, until its final day, an accomplishment widely credited to Aguirre. In contrast to the blood bath in other parts of Spain, the Basque government carried out fewer than 30 death sentences. The one great blemish on Aguirre’s record occurred on January 4, 1937. The Condor Legion had briefly attacked Bilbao, and an angry mob retaliated by storming the municipal jails. The Basque government had sent a police force from the UGT, the Socialist Trade Union, to liberate the prison, reasoning that if they had to fire into the mob to avert a massacre it would not be as politically divisive as having their own Ertzantza police turning against the population. But the Socialists did not save the prisoners; instead they supervised the attack. Finally, Telesforo de Monzón arrived at the head of a column of motorized police at what was already a scene of carnage, with bullet-pocked walls and murdered prisoners lying by broken down doors. He calmly informed a UGT official that if he did not remove his men from the prison they would all be shot.
But 224 political prisoners had already been killed.1 Aguirre, usually known for his calm, was outraged and after an investigation of the massacre, had six UGT officials sentenced to death for failing to protect the prisoners. After that, Aguirre was reluctant to hold prisoners, and his government worked closely with the Red Cross arranging releases and exchanges. He unilaterally released 113 women prisoners under Red Cross supervision, including Pilar Careaga, whom Franco would one day appoint mayor of Bilbao.
The Compañia Fano, Batallon Otachadiano, fighting on the Elgeta front, Guipúzcoa, 1937. (Euskal Arkeologia, Ethnografia eta Kondaira Museoa, Bilbao)
Among the Basque Nationalist Party families held by the rebels was Ramón Labayen and his mother. Separated from his wife and son, Ramon’s father, mayor of Tolosa and Basque Nationalist Party activist, had already escaped from Guipúzcoa to France. Under a Red Cross-arranged exchange, a British destroyer went to Bilbao and took the prisoners held by the Basque government, while Labayen, his mother, and others held