Homage is paid in England to a woman who is part of the living history of our people

This article was translated by John R. Bopp

Her name is María Luisa Incera, and she was a little girl when, in 1937, she had to abandon her family, her home, her friends, her school, and her life, to, along with almost four thousand other Basque boys and girls, board an old merchant ship called Habana to sail to Great Britain, to escape the disasters of war, or, more explicitly, to escape the claws of Fascism.

Ms. Incera is one of the Basque War Children.  There are fewer and fewer of them any more, and it’s most likely that the memories of their stories, and the hardships they endured in those truly terrible years is soon to disappear.

What’s more, it’s possible that an important part of their history would already be forgotten, were it not for a certain determination to preserve the memory of their exile.  Some of that comes of the The Basque Children of ’37 Association UK (The Basque Children), thanks to their encyclopedic, still horribly undervalued, to preserve and recover that fundamental part of the History of the Basques (and of Great Britain).

A few days ago, we blogged about how the Bradford Museum of Peace was offering an exhibit about the Basque war children’s stay in Yorkshire.

Today, we return to that museum, because within its activities, thanks to the curator of The Basque Children, homage has been paid to this survivor of the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War, to this person who had to abandon her homeland and start her life over again, in her adopted homeland on the other side of the sea of the Basques, the Bay of Biscay.

We cannot understand our history, or our present, without knowing her story, and those of all of the people of her generation.

Zorionak  María Luisa Incera.

The Telegraph and Argus – 29/2/2016 – Great Britain

Spanish Civil War refugee is guest of honour at Bradford exhibition

A REFUGEE who escaped the Spanish Civil war as a child was a special guest at a Bradford museum’s exhibition on how the UK helped Basque refugees. Maria Luisa Incera escaped from Franco’s bombing of the Basques in the Spanish Civil War in 1937 and fled to England as a refugee before settling and making a life for herself.

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Last Updated on Dec 20, 2020 by About Basque Country