On the Basque Radio Boulevard program, they interviewed Emilio Aperribai and her daughter Monica, who survived the bombing of Gernika. Aperribai has reported that, when the bombing began, her father and brother entered a shelter near the gun factory and her mother, with her little eight-month-old Emilio, ran off the Foruardán road.

Aperribai recounted the terrible route her mother had to make: German planes were constantly shooting bombs and bullets and her mother was hiding behind the trees as soon as she saw an airplane, "and she heard the whistle of bullets passing by her side. The planes were so close to the earth, that my mother told me she saw the smiles of the German pilots. Her mother saw a pickup truck on the road and thought about hiding under her. The mother and son headed there and, five meters before arriving, a bomb blew up the truck.

Mother and son came to Forua. After three hours of bombing, the mother decided to go up with her son to Lumo. It was almost at night and her son walked in his arms at a distance of two kilometers. At 12 p.m., the family reunited in Lumo's house. In fact, this farmhouse was the best known: that of the dairy farmers who brought milk home.

Aperribai explains that her father’s and brother’s bad luck remaining in the shelter was worse: "This hideout was full. It was very high and they were all lying on each other. And the priest, standing, praying. The father was not comfortable and walked away with his son about fifteen meters, inside the shelter, to be calmer. A bomb crossed the concrete wall in the area they were in, causing the death of 8 to 10 people. My father, covering my brother, burned his back. And my brother still lives, he's two years older than me, and he still has it in his broken head, the shrapnel that leapt to his head. After two days in the house of the acquaintances of Lumo, they moved to La Rioja, where they were received by their father’s family. The daughter Monica explained that they had to start from scratch in La Rioja and that they lost the Basque language, although they spoke in Gernika, because in La Rioja it was not done and since then it was banned. The family returned to Bilbao in 1953.

Call on the Spanish Government to apologize

Emilio Aperribai stressed that in 1997 the German President, Roman Herzog, officially asked for forgiveness on behalf of the Germans, "and in the same logic, the Spanish Government should ask for forgiveness."

Monika Aperribai explains: "We ask for a gesture of recognition. Condemn those facts. It would be a relief for the victims who left and for those who are still alive. They, as socialists, suffered great damage. They also had to extricate themselves and were trampled to death. That is why we call on the government to act with empathy and courage. Let them acknowledge that this happened and take as an example what the President of Germany did. Whether governments of the PSOE or of pp, current generations have nothing to do with the governments of Franco of that time. They wash their hands and say that is past. But the past can be forgiven, but we must not forget it. The only way forward is to recognize what happened. And it's not the past, those who live still have very much in mind what happened."