Decisive weekend for France and for Europe

IN a world looking as if might be sliding backwards toward the division and horrors of the last century rather than embracing the bright tomorrow the hopeful among us believed was secure, history’s lessons assume a new relevance.

They take on a sharpness, a pungency and almost scream warning. Despite that, they are all too often set aside to make room for today’s flights of fancy dressed as political possibilities that might improve people’s lives and lift all boats.

Next Wednesday marks the 80th anniversary of one of the milestone atrocities in human history. Guernica, a Basque town in northern Spain was razed by Nazi German and Fascist Italian warplanes at the request of Franco’s Nationalists. It was a first glimpse of the hell to come for so many other European and Russian towns. It was the first time an undefended town was so devastated by an attack from the air.