The small Spanish town that foretold Ukraine

Guernica is a warning to the world

Parents watch their children practice soccer on the leafy town square, ringed by red-roofed buildings and the hills of the Basque country. Nearby is the assembly house, next to the oak tree around which regional leaders have taken their oaths of office for more than six hundred years.

The small town is placid, even sleepy on a summer afternoon. Aside from the historical Museum of Peace, there’s little sign of Guernica’s traumatic history: It was the place where the terror bombing of an entire town was demonstrated for the first time.

For three and a half hours late in the afternoon of April 26, 1937, German and Italian pilots dropped bombs, including incendiary devices, that destroyed 85% of the town’s buildings and severely damaged nearly all of the rest. They strafed terrified civilians on a market day when thousands of residents from other communities had gathered there. At least 1,600 people were killed, according to the most reliable estimates.

The destruction of Guernica became a t…