WORLD WAR II

The slaughter of English in the liberation of Manila

In 1945, the Allied victory over the Japanese in the Philippines killed 100,000 people, 70,000 of which were carried out deliberately by Nipponese soldiers, which also killed 300 English and ended up with its historic influence in the archipelago

La masacre de españoles en la liberación de Manila

Image of the City of Manila in ruins after the Allied victory , 1945

"In Spain there are hundreds of families who know, or do not know, as his relatives were killed in the capital of the Philippines during those weeks indescribable," explained ABC correspondent London, November 1948, and since l Tokyo International Tribunal had just released a 135-page report "about Japanese atrocities" committed during the occupation of the Philippines, between 1941 and 1945, thousands of English suffered in their own flesh .

"Of those years remember the comment of a good English father, who thought that "the Japanese have brought us the shin of 98." He was beheaded by them in the courtyard of the church "in 1964 told the journalist José María Massip , about your stay in the Philippines in 1945.

However, episodes like this, who died almost forgotten in the history of Spain, were repeated until the last second of Japan's presence in the archipelago. A presence that culminated "one of the darkest chapters of the military history of the world, from which age 65.

During the retreat, the Japanese troops, fleeing the U.S. military - 'back', promised four years ago, General MacArthur, "preferred burning the defenseless city and end the lives of all citizens and military more they could, in a cruel and desperate attempt to prevent the survivors tell their defeat. There were over 100,000 deaths, of which over 70,000 were deliberately executed by Japanese soldiers.

"When I lost everything was complicated and treatment of the population turned violent. His victims were both Filipinos and Chinese German, Swiss or English. They could not tolerate the rest of the world to know of his humiliation, so he refused to leave the country for good and there was an indiscriminate slaughter, "he told the writer Carmen Güell, author of" The Last of the Philippines' , the book that tells, in first person, the testimony of Elena Lizarraga , one of the survivors of English origin who suffered the consequences of Japan's brutality.

Within days, all of Manila's English colonial past, present, in its historic buildings, was razed and about 300 of the 3,000 English census were brutally murdered.

"Piety, diplomacy, anticipation, Asian brotherhood did not exist. There was only the horror of war and fire, "had Massip in 64 of the bloody, devastating and absurd Japan's withdrawal of the archipelago, which killed more people than the atomic bombs fall, five months later, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki .

The Allied victory over the Japanese had, therefore, a terrible human and material cost in Manila, which became, since then, the second most devastated city by bombing during World War II after Warsaw. And in Manila, the southern part of Malate and Intramuros, inhabited by many English families, the hardest hit of all.

The end of the English influence

That traumatic end of the Pacific War also meant the end of the English imprint in the Philippines, which had remained strong despite the more than forty years of American colonization. The very presence of English citizens declined sharply because, besides the three hundred who died from among the 3,000 residents, another 500 returned to the Peninsula , unable to start a new life.

ABC.ES.

ISRAEL VIANA The gathering

Pombo coffee, oil on canvas painted by José Gutiérrez Solana in 1920. The author appears in the background at right. Standing, the writer Ramón Gómez de la Serna.

After the restoration of

The coffee gathering

Pombo, José Gutiérrez Solana, has found another box in this case an image of religious. - NATIONAL MUSEUM REINA SOFIA ART CENTER / PEPE LOREN

Perhaps it was a joke internal, or perhaps not portrayed them knowing. What is certain is that restaurateurs has brought a surprise. When in mid-2009 technicians Reina Sofia Museum Madrid

began to restore and fully investigate the box

The coffee gathering Pombo, painted in 1920 by Jose Gutierrez Solana, they found that under those nine gentlemen so serious sitting around a table with their coffees, their cups and sugar cubes, X-rays discovered another box, which clearly shows an altar with a religious figure, several candles and a crouching figure.

As explained Jorge Rodriguez responsible for restoration of the museum, the first reason for the withdrawal of the work of the museum was the appearance of some cracks in the paint, they call cracked: "We wanted to work on it, because new technologies allow new approaches show ". And it was. Two years of complex restoration with a team of seven people have given a fruit that is already in the museum.
The canvas has gone through four phases have been discovered, little by little, what was underneath. The first was the application of the so-called visible light, which broadened the picture up to four times its size to see the details. Thus, the team called attention to the way in which the cracks were located and also a thicker line than the others on the left of the canvas. The second phase was the analysis with ultraviolet light, fluorescent, which was that the paint was applied unevenly. then passed through infrared image, but layers of paint from the work of Solana are very thick, and the rays were little fruit. The finding came in the fourth phase, the X-ray, which found "abundantly clear", according to restaurateurs, which was another box below the table: a work of religious and lines marked with a figure that has not painted the head and who loves a virgin located in a niche above the altar.

's insistence Ramón Gómez de la Serna

"It is curious that the emphasis placed by Gómez de la Serna in this work was painted," says John Smith, head of restoration of this work. Although Gutiérrez Solana used to paint religious scenes,
The gathering

Pombo coffee meetings reflects the author's colleagues, including the operator of the greguerías, writer Ramón Gómez de la Serna, who is standing in the middle of Table of journalists, poets, essayists and artists. Even the author appears in the work in the upper right.

The Museum has recovered work and you can see in their rooms, with a twinkle perhaps more intense than usual so as not to lose its transparency. Beside him, a screen that can be found

phases

Imagen de Rayos X bajo 'La tertulia del café de Pombo'

restoration, and that allows for some answers. Why the author used a canvas that was dismissed? Is it normal, well into the twentieth century? "No, not commonplace," says Rodriguez, "although it occurs with some authors who have a certain poverty of materials. But it is the case of Gutierrez Solana."
So why would a canvas using Solana quite finished, which drew a religious scene vertically, to paint then a group of commentators horizontally? Experts believe it could be to take advantage of a work rejected, but do not rule out a joke of the group, although there is nothing documented. What is known is that intellectuals, who gathered at the Pombo-coffee Madrid little more than a tavern located on the central calle de Carretas, gave their name to the room in which they appear in the painting:

The Crypt Pombo. A crypt immortalized among cafes, books, soda and a bottle of rum under the half-smile of Ramón Gómez de la Serna. Maybe she was thinking about your next set of words, the crypt and crypt.

ELPAIS.ES, MARY

PORCEL STEPPE - Madrid - 24/03/2011 TO LEARN MORE: