
“Bury them in the basements and in the caves if you must! Not a single painting shall leave this island!” Winston Churchill had ordered during the battle of France. The British had intended to send every work of art from the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square to Canada, but that plan had come to nought. Still, their culture must be protected; beauty must be preserved. Museums were the last line of defence against the Nazis, and their resistance would be their emptying and the scattering of their great works. The bombardment of the city of London had been going on for months. The Nazis coveted great works of art and had decided to pillage all of Europe in search of them. Rumour had it that Marshal Göring, commander of the Luftwaffe, was collecting paintings as war trophies and had already collected masterpieces by Velasquez, Raphaël, Renoir...the list went on. As France succumbed to occupation, most of the paintings by the great masters had been requisitioned by the Third Reich to decorate the homes and mansions of its generals and marshals. But no-one, as yet, had worked out how to invade the island of Great Britain. “We shall never surrender!” Churchill had declared over Britain’s radio waves.
Orders had been given, and orders were followed: the artworks and paintings from the National Gallery were taken off the walls, wrapped up and transported to safe places. “What painting is this?” asked one of the workers. No-one knew the value of these masterpieces; priceless, probably. They had strict instructions to have the paintings transported to Wales. “What’s it matter to you? Manet or Turner? We have to get them somewhere safe!” the second man replied. The paintings were hidden in damp caves; better to succumb to mould than dishonour. England’s artistic heritage was in danger. Trafalgar’s National Gallery had already been bombed several times. Now they must wait for the war to be over, for the Royal Air Force to save them.
“How many of these do we have left to move?”
“A hundred and eighty-six exactly,” the second man answered.
“We won’t give up.”
“The Germans have requisitioned over forty thousand paintings. From Poland, from France, even Austria. They say Hitler gives them to Nazi party members for their birthdays or to congratulate them on a job well done. The last one was a painting by Giovanni Paolo Pannini, given as a gift at a big birthday party.”
“I heard the French kept the window panes from the stained-glass roof of the Grande Coupole. They took out each pane one by one, and the Resistance hid them in the free zone.”
“What do they do with these paintings anyway, by God?”
“They decorate their castles in Bavaria. I don’t know, but it’s a scandal. The paintings of the great masters like da Vinci are in danger. The Nazis are requisitioning every masterpiece.”
“As if those animals could ever understand fine art!”
All of a sudden, the men heard a bomb going off; the echoes carried all the way down to the cave. They looked at each other worriedly. “Don’t worry, the Royal Air Force will see to those bastards!” said the first man. A series of explosions resounded through the cave. The interminable echo of bomb blasts was deafening, even underground. The second man murmured a prayer. The explosions continued, far off and nearby at the same time. “One day, we’ll go over there and finish those devils off for good!” the first man growled. Then, in the depths of the cave, they gently laid down the painting of the Virgin and Child before heading back to move another.
The explosions died down, and calm returned. The first light of day appeared; another day’s labour for the workmen of the museum, for those heroic defenders of the arts.
Alan Alfredo Geday