This book is the result of a person who started learning  Basque in the sheep camps of Idaho, in order to research the story of the Gernika bombing. in Mountain Home (Idaho) William Smallwood was baptized "Basilio Egurtxiki" by Dr. John Bideganeta, a second-generation Basque and a distinguised citizen of the town. "Egurtxiki" is the literal translation into Basque of Smallwood.

In September of 1971 Egurtxiki came to Gernika to research his book on the bombing and, in the spring and summer of 1972 he managed to conduct seventy-four interviews with survivors of the bombing. The following fall and winter, primarily through the efforts of María Ángeles Basabe, the number of interviews was increased to one hundred and twenty-four. They both risked much, for a person could be arrested and tortured for mentioning the bombing. All the interviews had to be conducted in absolutely secret. Hitherto unknown, we are honoured to publish the story written in the words of the surviviors, forty years later, and seventy-five years after the bombing.