Blog

UNESCO Award City for Peace to Gernika-Lumo

Premio Unesco

The “UNESCO Cities for Peace” Prize rewards local initiatives that contribute to strengthening social cohesion, improving living conditions in neighbourhoods and developing genuine urban coexistence. UNESCO offers a global vision of the innovative practices led by the candidate cities. “The recognition of Gernika is based, fundamentally, on the “reconciliation” between this town and Germany. In 1997, sixty years after the bombing by the Condor Legion, the German ambassador in Spain read a letter in the Biscayan town in which the German people asked for forgiveness from Gernika. Unesco also values Gernika’s work for peace carried out by the Peace Research Centre promoted by Gernika Gogoratuz and the creation of the Basque Peace Museum Foundation, a year and a half ago” (El País, 2004).