Today on the YouTube channel, I’m continuing a series of videos about different interesting topics from the Basque Country’s history.
This video focuses on the witches of Zugarramurdi, a group of people from a small town in the Basque Country who were accused of witchcraft during the Spanish Inquisition. Learn more about the largest witch trial on the Iberian Peninsula in today’s video.
Today on the YouTube channel, I’m continuing a series of videos about different interesting topics from the Basque Country’s history.
This video focuses on the medieval Jewish community in the Basque city of Vitoria-Gasteiz that was persecuted during the Spanish Inquisition. Jews were chased out of the city, but they were afforded one courtesy in gratitude for their role in saving the city from the plague a few years earlier.
Today on the YouTube channel, I’m continuing a series of videos about different interesting topics from the Basque Country’s history.
This video focuses on the Comet Line, one of the escape routes through Europe during World War II that allowed Allied forces stuck behind enemy lines to get to safety. The Comet Line went from Belgium, through France, and down into Spain. The Basque Country was the chosen route to cross over the French/Spanish border, and many Basque smugglers were involved in helping hundreds of Allied servicemen.
Today on the YouTube channel, I’m sharing an interview I did with my dad about his Christmas growing up in the Basque Country in the 1940’s and 1950’s.
Aita talks about what they did on Christmas Day, what kinds of presents he got, and how he sees traditions have changed over the years. He discusses how he spent Christmas in the United States vs. the Basque Country, what he thinks of Olentzero, and shares his Christmas message for the audience.
I went through YouTube looking for information on Basque immigrants in the United States. I love learning what I can about the diversity of experiences Basque immigrants had and the places they ended up.
What’s really special is the videos I found feature the descendants of Basque immigrants and how they celebrate their pride in their Basque heritage. So not only can you discover more about why Basque immigrants of years past came to the United States, but also how their presence is felt generations later.
If that sounds like something you want to learn more about, check out this interesting mix of formal news reports and individual video compilations.
The festival of San Fermin in Pamplona, Nafarroa kicked off this past weekend. Although officially a celebration in honor of Pamplona’s patron saint, the festival is most famous for its Running of the Bulls, when daring festival-goers clad in red and white take to the streets to be chased by bulls. Every afternoon these same bulls meet their fate in the festival’s famous bullfights at the Plaza de Toros. The festival of San Fermin has been an annual affair in Pamplona since the 15th century, although the bull run and bullfighting are more modern traditions. San Fermin was primarily a local affair, relatively unknown outside of the Basque Country. But American writer Ernest Hemingway brought this tradition to the attention and fascination of the outside world in the 1920’s.
