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“Guernica”
France, 1937
Bronze sculpture
René Iché (1897-1954)
House of European History, Brussels, Belgium

The Spanish Civil War began in 1936 and ended in 1939 with the victory of Franco’s dictatorship. His coup d’état against the Second Spanish Republic is illustrative of the period’s confrontation between dictatorship and democracy. The bombing of the Basque town of Guernica on 26 April 1937 by German and Italian planes was one of the most horrific events of the Spanish Civil War.