Robert Hale Merriman, the commander of the Lincoln Battalion who mysteriously disappeared during the Battle of Teruel in early April 1938, has been drawing attention. Milton Zerman, a history major at UC Berkeley, has been raising $1,000 to place a plaque commemorating Merriman and his wife, Marion, outside the Virginia Street apartment building where...
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A seasoned New York City reporter’s search for her family history leads her back to Civil War Spain.
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Why was the United States so reluctant to support the Spanish Republic? What prompted Roosevelt’s reactionary attitude to the struggle of Spanish democracy against fascism? Isolationism and FDR’s fear of losing the Catholic vote played a role—but they are not the whole story. President Franklin D. Roosevelt has long been an iconic figure for...
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Students from around the world once again applied to ALBA’s Watt Essay contest, which recognizes academic projects and essays about the Spanish Civil War. This year, five prizes were awarded.
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Spanish high schools often cover the Civil War and Francoism only sporadically and superficially. A new book with lesson plans based on graphic novels hopes to improve the situation. Was Francisco Franco a dictator? The question seems silly. Yet in the days following Franco’s exhumation from the Valley of the Fallen this fall, a...
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This past October and November, ALBA staff have worked with high school teachers in Ohio, New York, and New Jersey, offering full-day workshops on “The United States and World Fascism: Human Rights from the Spanish Civil War to Nuremberg and Beyond.” In November, ALBA also offered two workshops for educators at the Conference on...
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How can we leverage our educational system into a building block for an anti-fascist front? This has long been the key question behind ALBA’s work.
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Emilio Silva, the founder of the ALBA/Puffin Award-winning Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (ARMH), was back in New York City in October as part of a North-American tour. His New York visit included a screening of Bones of Contention, a documentary by Andrea Weiss about Spanish efforts to locate and exhume victims...
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After more than a year of work, the restoration of the largest United States monument dedicated to the volunteers who fought fascism in Spain, at the end of San Francisco’s Market Street, across the Embarcadero from the Ferry Building, is nearing completion. Designed by Walter Hood and Ann Chamberlain, the monument consists of 44...
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Pursuit of Reason, Philadelphia: Adelante Press, 1971, pp. 21-31 The early morning weather was fine, just fine; warm and sunny, with a very slight breeze from the South. I could smell Africa, over six hundred kilometers away and four thousand feet below me. The month was April. Blue swallows flitted greetings to Spring. I...
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The Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA) is an educational non-profit dedicated to promoting social activism and the defense of human rights. ALBA’s work is inspired by the American volunteers of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade who fought fascism in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). Learn more at our website or
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My grandfather (Nana), Suresh, moved to the United States in 1959 as a young man on a student visa pursuing his master’s degree. His parents, my great grandparents, sought value in being ‘foreign educated’ and bringing his education home – to Mumbai, India to run their family business. 2 years after my Nana moved...
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Peter N. Carroll, a respected and prolific writer, poet, and US historian, died after a short illness on September 16, surrounded by his family. He was 80. Born in New York City in 1943 to a secular Jewish family, Peter grew up in the Bronx and Queens, where his father worked as a composer,...
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LA RÉPUBLIQUE -QUOTIDINEN DE COMBAT RADICAL ET SOCIALISTE, February 5, 1938 Foreign Volunteer Arrested On March 27 last, 29 North Americans were arrested on board the boat Sans-Pareil while they were attempting to reach the Spanish Coast. They were sentenced to a prison term for violating the decree of February 18, 1937 on the...
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The “Spanija” series translates selected autobiographical accounts by Yugoslavian and Montenegrin volunteers of their actions in the Spanish Civil War. Dr. Ray Hoff used Google translate from Croatian to English and he edited the selections. As this is a machine translation, the idiomatic features of Croatian or Serbian and the translation of names and...
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The Spanija series translates select autobiographical accounts by Yugoslavian and Montenegrin volunteers of their actions in the Spanish Civil War. Dr. Ray Hoff used Google Translate from Croatian to English and he edited the selections. As this is a machine translation, the idiomatic features of Croatioan or Serbian and the translation of names and...
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Peter Verburgh’s translation from the French Newpaper Le Journal about a group of 29 Americans arrested in France. “29 American Volunteers Arrested in Muret” Le Journal, 5 April 1937 Toulouse, 4 April- The Control services of the Non-Intervention Committee do not remain inactive, especially with the help of the French Police and Gendarmerie. Thus...
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ALBA Board Member Steve Birnbaum made the trek on Memorial Day to the Home of Eternity Cemetary in Oakland, California to pay tribute to ALB veteran Hans Joachim. Joachim was born in Berlin, Germany in 1906 and moved to the US in 1924. He served in Spain with the George Washington Battalion and later...
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Please find attached photos of my visits to the graves of Lester Rowlson and Tersil Obriot last weekend. I left a brigade flag and a fresh white rose at each. ,,, I was also proud to include aspects of my Clapton CFC scarf; you might have heard of this small football club in London that...
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Peter Verbergh translated this article from CeSoir describing the arrest of the Dallet-Nelson Group. “The Interrogation of the Passengers of the Sans-Pareil”, CeSoir, March 29, 1937 (From our Special Correspondent) Perpignan March 28 (By Telephone) Yesterday morning around 10am, The Coast Guard Vessel Cebère docked in the port of Port-Vendres alongside the torpedo boat...
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Only five veterans of the Spanish Civil War are known to be buried in Virginia outside of Arlington National Cemetery: two in Richmond, two in Norfolk, and one in Big Stone Gap. ALB Tribute visited the graves of Harry Edward Farris and Thomas Moore in Richmond as well as Manuel Lizarrago and Crawford Morgan...
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ALBA's project to provide a complete list of the more than 2,800 individuals who left from U.S. territory to fight with the Spanish Republic
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