Gernika Peace Museum Foundation
 
The Gernika Peace Museum -formerly known as the Gernika Museum-- was founded on 7th April 1998 by the Gernika-Lumo Town Hall in a building which was previously been used by the Courts and the post office and Telegraph service.
The Museum may be considered as a history museum in the sense that it was used as a guide to the history of Gernika-Lumo and, more particularly, to the Civil War and the bombing.
From 1999 to 2002, with the assistance of the Ministry of Culture, the decision was taken to turn the museum into a Peace Museum (the first peace museum in the Basque Country and the entire Spanish State).

The Gernika Peace Museum has been a Foundation since July 2002, and the museum opened again on 8 January 2003. Nowadays it is a place where that we can all work together to shape our own peace.
The Museum celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2008 and has its sights firmly set on the future.
The Museum has been a very active member of the following national and international networks for many years now. :

INTERNATIONAL NETWORK OF MUSEUMS FOR PEACE (INMP)
ICOM: International Council of Museums
IC-MEMO (The International Committee of Memorial Museums in Remembrance of the Victims of Public Crimes)
AIPAZ (Spanish Association of Research for peace)
INTERNATIONAL COALITION OF SITES OF CONSCIENCE
FORUM OF PEACE AND HUMAN RIGHTS ASSOCIATIONS

Mission:
The mission of the Gernika Peace Museum Foundation is to preserve, display, publicize, conduct research and educate visitors in the basic ideas of the culture of peace, and the past and present relation of this culture to the history of Gernika-Lumo, so that, together with other history and peace organizations, Gernika-Lumo, the province of Bizkaia and the Basque Country be used as local, regional, national and international references in the search for peace and culture.
Location:
Guernica is a town in Spain, in the province of Biscay. The town was founded back in 1366 and had a population of 16,224 as of the year 2009. The town is best known as the scene of the April 26th 1937 'Bombing of Guernica.'
 
Why a peace museum in Gernika? What happened in Gernika?
Gernika is best known to those residing outside the Basque region as the scene of the April 26, 1937, Bombing of Gernika, one of the first aerial bombings by Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe. It inspired the painting Guernica by Pablo Picasso too.
On April 26, 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, the town was razed to the ground by German aircraft belonging to the Condor Legion, sent by Hitler to support Franco's troops. For almost four hours bombs rained down on Gernika in an "experiment" for the blitzkrieg tactics and bombing of civilians seen in later wars.
Guernica Peace Museum Foundation is a museum of the history of Guernica. It was inspired by the tragic bombing of Gernika on 26 April 1937 (Spanish Civil War).

An overview of the museum:

The aim of this museum is to disseminate and educate visitors in the principles and basic ideas of peace.
Gernika represents the Basque Country's greatest symbol of freedom, and after the infamous bombing which took place during the Civil War, became a pacifist emblem. The permanent exhibition approaches the subject of peace from different points of view, as well as the history of Gernika. The museum also has two video rooms, a conference room and a documentation centre on the bombing.

The permanent exhibition of the museum operates around three major questions:

What is peace?
What is the legacy of the bombing of Gernika?
What about peace in the world today?

The Gernika Peace Museum Foundation also has several travelling exhibitions which are as follow:

Art and Human Rights
The Bombing of Gernika
Falling to Make the Grade: The Spanish civil war and school books
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The Road to Peace
Women in Gernika in 20th century: Testimonies and Experiences

They have their own Gernika Award for Peace and Reconciliation.

You can learn more on Gernika Peace Museum and its activities, conferences, exhibitions, educational programs, the documentation center, and so on by visiting its website:
http://www.museodelapaz.org/en/index_en.php

Few photos of the Museum: