San Sebastián, (EFE).- The Gipuzkoa Provincial Council pays homage to the Guipuzcoan “children of war”, some 10,400 identified, of which around a hundred are still alive, in an act in which memories of the suffering they entail go into exile in childhood.
More than 600 people have attended the event that the Kursaal has developed under the direction of Fernando Bernués with the music of Iñaki Salvador and performances by Koro Easo Infantil, Kukai dantza taldea, Andoni Egaña and Maite Arruabarrena.
exile to france
Among the honorees were Garbiñe Iturbe, from Legazpi, and Lore Albizu, from Zumaia, who were very young when they had to leave their villages for France and who have recounted some of their memories to the media before participating in the ceremony.
Fleeing from the war took Garbiñe Iturbe to Paris, where he had a nun aunt who welcomed them, and he was in the French capital until the Second World War broke out and he returned to Legazpi.
Lore Albizu went with her mother from Zumaia to Bilbao by road and from the Biscayan capital they took a boat that took them to Bordeaux when she was five years old.
The war was a hard experience but Lore Albizu highlights above all “the suffering that his mother had to endure”.
The deputy general of Gipuzkoa, Markel Olano, has pointed out that these people lived through the horror of the war and had to flee “persecuted by fascism” and has indicated that with today’s act, in some way, they denounce what is happening in Ukraine “with the totalitarian invasion of Putin’s Russia.”
Research of more than two years
The tribute is the result of the collaboration of the foral institution with the association “Intxorta 1937”, which has been investigating for more than two and a half years to rescue the identities and stories of the Gipuzkoan “children of war”.
The aim has been to identify the children by their first and last names and, where possible, to obtain a photograph and a brief history of their lives.
Finally, after searching various European archives and collecting testimonies and data from exiles and their families, the Intxorta 1937 association was able to identify 10,232 cases: 5,053 men and 4,960 women.
Although the study is finished, if new names are found, they will be added to the database prepared by the Intxorta association and which will be made public in the coming weeks on the website of the Gipuzkoa Provincial Council.
In total, 56 municipalities in Gipuzkoa have been identified as the places of origin of these minors, although there are another 246 people for whom there is no information in this regard.
Most of the exiled boys and girls fled from San Sebastián (3,681), Irun (1,590), Hondarribia (609) and Pasaia (571), although cases have been found in Abaltzizketa, Elgeta, Lazkao and Zegama, and one case in Altzo, Zizurkil, Zaldibia and Asteasu.
