{"id":7759,"date":"2025-07-04T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/?p=7759"},"modified":"2025-07-05T12:40:03","modified_gmt":"2025-07-05T12:40:03","slug":"martin-aguirre-y-otegui-basque-righteous-among-the-nations-celebrates-his-100th-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2025\/07\/04\/martin-aguirre-y-otegui-basque-righteous-among-the-nations-celebrates-his-100th-birthday\/","title":{"rendered":"Martin Aguirre y Otegui, Basque \u201cRighteous Among the Nations,\u201d Celebrates His 100th\u00a0Birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This article was written by Pedro Oiarzabal.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martin, born on July 4, 1925, in Las Arenas, Getxo (Bizkaia), was one of the thousands of children evacuated by the Basque government in June 1937 to escape the aerial bombardments perpetrated by General Francisco Franco\u2019s Italian and German allies against the civilian population. Martin and two younger brothers were sent to Belgium. At just 12 years of age, he became the head of his family during their exile and through the harsh times of World War II. In May 1940, Germany invaded Belgium. The Aguirres once again found themselves in the middle of a war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During that last world conflict, Martin became an active member of a clandestine network in Belgium aiding and rescuing Jews from the Nazi regime. Despite being in his late teens, he saved the lives of a considerable number of children and teenage Jews. On January 11, 2011, Yad Vashem\u2014The Holocaust Martyrs\u2019 and Heroes\u2019 Remembrance Authority\u2014recognized Martin as one of \u201cThe Righteous Among the Nations<\/a>.\u201d He is one of the very few Basques recognized in this way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Martin Aguirre, aged 88, in 2014, being interviewed by Dr. Oiarzabal.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Aguirre\u2019s biographer, Dr. Pedro J. Oiarzabal, describes him \u201cas a humble man of great integrity and honesty.\u201d \u201cI am proud to call him my friend,\u201d the Basque diaspora specialist said. \u201cAs an oral historian, I began a series of interviews with Martin back in 2014 and we have stayed connected as much as possible through the years. I am still thanking him for agreeing to be interviewed and for narrating his life, which included some very painful moments and memories, which I will always treasure and protect.\u201d Dr. Oiarzabal concludes, \u201cwe owe him so much for making this world a freer and better place under the very difficult circumstances that were World War II. We will forever be in his debt.\u201d

Happy birthday, Zorionak<\/em>, Martin!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article was written by Pedro Oiarzabal. Martin, born on July 4, 1925, in Las Arenas, Getxo (Bizkaia), was one of the thousands of children evacuated by the Basque government in June 1937 to escape the aerial bombardments perpetrated by General Francisco Franco\u2019s Italian and German allies against the civilian population. Martin and two younger […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1958],"tags":[236,4139,159,4140,290,246],"class_list":["post-7759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fighting-basques","tag-fighting-basques","tag-martin-aguirre-y-otegui","tag-pedro-oiarzabal","tag-righteous-among-the-nations","tag-spanish-civil-war","tag-world-war-ii"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Aguirre_Martinb.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2sYNu-219","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7759"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7781,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7759\/revisions\/7781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}