Homage to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and Bernard Entin, PhotoCollage, Alan Entin, 2013

I. In the Beginning

Second child, Bernard, born March 1, 1915

Older brother, my father, Jacob (Jack), born June 3, 1912

Younger sister, Roslyn, born (June 1, 1922) disabled, hospitalized, died February 10, 1942

Their father, Abraham, died March 21,1930

Their mother, Nettie, died April 29, 1953

Bernie

Brilliant student, graduated

High school young, (age 16)

Teenage indiscretions:

Paternity suit won;

Results undone,

Support suit lost,

Dropped out of college

Aspiration of law school, gone amid

Conflictual family relationships

II. The Great Depression

The Great Depression:

Unemployment universal.

Riding rails, going to jails.

Union protester, strike organizer

All had nicknames, his Butch

“Good looking, husky, curly haired…

Tough as nails, Tough yes, but gentle

and compassionate as well. …

someone you wanted on your side, and

fortunately for us, we had him on ours”¹

Bernie joins Young Communist League

Jack and Nora, my parents marry,

In a week following a major snowstorm

January 24,1937

and then…

III. Spain, 1937

Bernie leaves home, secretly

April 7, Sets sail, Queen Mary

Arrives, Cherbourg, France, late April

May 4,Tours France

Letters and postcards home

Inform intentions, going to Spain

His mother, traumatized, endures first heart attack.

Letters implore “Please adopt orphans

Who face lasting pain” ²

Two months later

Crosses Pyrenees,

A volunteer, a Brigadista

Spanish Civil War

First battle of Second World War

In the Abraham Lincoln Brigade

IV. July 26, 1937, Brunete

Bloodiest battle of the war

Two months and two weeks later,

A Brigadista, wounded in war

In greeting best friend he vows to return,

With shoulder wound mended,

“I got me a blighty,” (His medallion of war).

A friend helps him to safety, but ambulance

A target of Franco’s bomb. Safety ride ended³

Harry Fisher’s son carries his name

An account lists him among seven American dead,

killed on a firing line?⁴

Evidence scant.

Whether killed after capture or executed from the sky

A life cut short traumatizes generations with pain

V. November 15,1938, Farewell Address to International Brigades Dolores Ibárruri (La Pasionaria)⁵

You can go proudly

You are history

You are legend

You are the heroic example of democracy’s solidarity and universality

We shall not forget you,

And when the olive tree of peace puts forth its leaves again

Mingled with the leaves of the Spanish Republic’s Victory

Come back

Come back home

VI. Connecting the Dots

A child discovered in days of yore

Secrets of family, spoken nevermore

Dreams of equality between rich and poor,

A protester for human rights and justice

Willing to die for democracy

So that others may live free

Future generations allured to explore

His desire, leave this world a better place

My discovery:

A cache of pictures and letters that

Would shape the trajectory of my life

Over the decades that it took for me to unlock their secrets

I became a family psychologist,

A specialist in the exploration of generational trauma;

A photographer, well-published, extensively exhibited;

These two passions merged, phototherapy,

Photographs in therapy

VII. Homenajes en España

Seventy years later, as if by chance,

(Although there is no such thing as chance)

A friend suggests technology

Google search click one:

An emotional remembrance of him,

Still stirs goosebumps when read

Click two: bibliographies

Of Veterans of the Lincoln Brigade.

First phone call to son of best friend

Given middle name of father’s best friend

Another call: his buddy from Brooklyn to Spain.

Recalls the twenty he gave him for his mother

But could not recall if it was a gift or a loan

Its importance: all these years later,

Accrued interest, incalculable?

He laughed, forgave any debt

Then, the 70th Anniversary celebration.

Madrid, Zaragoza, Barcelona

Volunteers greeted and feted as never before,

Heroes of that great war, their traumas kept secret,

Back at home

Their treasure of that great war

Another homenaje, to Brunete, an exquisite fall-day

Rainbow greeting high in the sky

Battlefield gate painted red, yellow and purple,

Majestic hues of the Second Republic

By the once lush river Guadarrama,

A memorial service, “Yizkor,”

Prayer of remembrance,

Remembering in kindness those whose fate sleeps in the dust

Years of curiosity, pain and confusion,

Dispelled forever on Spanish terrain

Driving away,

Another rainbow glistened in the sky

As if that brave soldier listened

As we said goodbye

VIII. Returning Home

Enshrined forever in Spanish earth,

A legacy of joy and pain

Two decades later black-listed,

Transformed, memorialized, sanctified,

McCarthy’s House of UnAmerican Activities report

Bernard Butch Entin larger than life

My hero, my Uncle, Mythical Man

— June 28, 2025

References

(1) Fisher, H. (2011). Legacy, Left Legacy Press, New York City and Maplewood, N.J, p.102.

(2) Entin, B. (1937, July 15). Unpublished Letters, The Tamiment Library/ Robert F Wagner Labor Archives, Elmer Bobst Library, York University Libraries, 70 Washington Square South, New York, NY, 10012.

(3) Fisher, H. (2001). Germans and Americans Facing Each Other Again. The Volunteer, Journal of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, p.16.

(4) Geiser, C. (1986) Prisoners of the Good Fight, The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939 Lawrence Hill & Company, Westport, CT, p. 263 and p. 272.

(5) Ibarruri, D. (1966). They Shall Not Pass, The Autobiography of La Pasionara, (2005, edition), International Publishers, p. 313 -314.

Alan D. Entin, PhD, ABPP, is a photographer and family psychologist specializing in generational trauma who writes about photographs and family secrets and has pioneered the use of photographs in therapy. His uncle, Bernard Entin, served in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and died in the Battle of Brunete. Alan’s five-minute montage “Homage to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade” can be viewed on YouTube.