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The Second World War and its precursors - and therefore also its too frequent recurrences - appear to contain a host of as yet unknown histories, as Expósito already proved in previous tapes. This time he focuses on the fates of children, a group which in every war gives rise to many expressions of concern but for whom the belligerents, judging by their behaviour, show little consideration. For if they did the war would never have started in the first place. Here we find a fragment from a British newsreel, the text referring to the young victims of the Spanish Civil War with great compassion. They are ready to be evacuated far away from their home country where circumstances have become impossible. Countless 'receipts' show that there was a true exodus from Santander and elsewhere to Leningrad. The postcards they sent to their families staying behind show in between the scrawled lines the courage with which they tried to get on with life in a totally alien environment. "Viva Russia, Viva España libre". Another shocking fragment shows the destruction of Guernica, with dazed people roaming through the still smoking rubble. Other scenes from the Civil War, filmed familiarly in coarse-grained black and white and supplied with ominous sound effects, hammer the message home once again, perhaps unnecessarily, until one shot miraculously changes into full colour: a warning reference to our times. War is not nostalgic misery from the past or a photogenic accident far from our beds.
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Erik Daams
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Voice: Jorge Castellote, Jaime en Juan Muñoz, Sara Murado, With: Conchita Eguidazu
, In collaboration, With: Feli Alvarez, Maite Cardin, Luis Lamadrid, José A. Pedraza, Post-production: Paco Utray, Alberto Báscones, Emilio G. Romero, Footage: Archivo Histórico Nacional, Filmoteca Española, Filmoteca Vasca, Gaumont British News, Reuters/Visnews Library, Sound material: Victor Nubla; "Quantos/Represalia" Labaratorio de Música Desconocida, Production: Frances Libertes/Eurocreation, Canal+
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