Between December 15 and 28, Alfredo Espinosa, formerly head of the department of Health at Orive, will be open in the exhibition hall of the Basurtum Social Center at 1 Zankoeta Street in Bilbao.
The exhibition comprises six large panels and other laminae, with various images of this humanist doctor’s brief life. The fascists shot Gasteiz in 1937, after he was captured in Zere. The pilot who was to take him from Tolosa to Santander betrayed Espinosa, and because of the supposed failure he landed the plane on the beach of Clawalet, where the francists were waiting for him.
The grandson of the famous Salustian Orive (inventor of the “Licor del Polo”), Espinosa was a convinced republican, the physician of the poor (he paid no money for the care of the needless sick), and a firm defender of justice and law (always, until his death, opposed the executions and arbitrary repression).
“I want to beg you before you return to the bosom of the earth, and it is this: when the courts condemn a man to death, my vow is always from the other world, for I believe he may have a mother or a wife and children, and a terrible sentence will always be borne by innocent persons. Ask my colleagues, in my name, what I ask of you, and I beseech you not to reprimand yourselves with the prisoners you now have, who have suffered enough as I suffer. “
The exhibition will be open until December 28, and can be visited from Monday to Friday, 8:30 to 21:00.
The exhibit is organized by the Leizaola Foundation, with the help of the Gogora Memorial, Life and Human Rights Institute.