Ibárruri was asked to manage a new short-wave radio station that broadcast news, analysis and opinion to the citizens of Francoist Spain. The Moscow station carried the official name of Radio España Independiente, but in Spain it was nicknamed "La Pirenaica" partly on the false belief that it was located in the Pyrenees and partly because the radio itself used the label occasionally. Radio España Independiente started to broadcast on July 22, 1941, one month after Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Initial broadcasts were made from candle-lit basements under sporadic aerial bombardment. Ibárruri related that seniors, women and children kept watch on the terraces of Moscow every night for the burning sticks of incendiaries scattered by the Luftwaffe. Civilians would pick up the blazing sticks with a pair of tongs and dunk them in pails of water.