There’s an extra beat here, I think.” Pete Seeger’s banjo tentatively picks the chords to “Viva la Quince Brigada,” the classic Spanish Civil War song that he first recorded in 1943. While Seeger, who is turning 92 this year, half-hums the staccato Spanish lyrics, blues singer Guy Davis hesitantly follows along on his guitar. (Event video here.) The tiny green...
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On Tuesday, November 2, over 40 New York City public high school teachers of social studies attended the second annual ALBA/Puffin Professional Development Day at NYU’s King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center. The teachers were selected from a pool of almost 100 applicants. In the morning session,...
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Viewing Taro’s negatives of the Battle of Brunete, preserved for seventy years in the Mexican Suitcase, is like seeing a ghost. They constitute a visual record of the last days of her life. Indeed, many of them have a ghostly quality. Whether the negatives have deteriorated over the years or...
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ALBA’s George Watt Memorial Essay Prizes are awarded annually to a graduate student and an undergraduate student who have written an outstanding essay or thesis chapter about any aspect of the Spanish Civil War, the...
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Between World Wars I and II, the contentious issue of nationalism—how it can be shaped in radical or conservative ways by racially oppressed people; whether it must be embraced...
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Buenaventura Durruti was a hero to the anarchist movement, and his death on the Madrid front on November 20, 1936, saw a mass outpouring of grief from Spain’s anarchists....
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Although Picasso experts agree that the painter’s interest in the war as a subject was sparked some time in late 1936 or early 1937, the precise circumstances of the “conversion” that made the Guernica possible were never fully made clear—until now, that is. Last year, while preparing an edition of the Spanish Civil War...
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What follows is not the laying of charges.
It is a recording secretary’s deposition.
I catalogue the ruins, count the dead, weigh up the spilled blood.
I have seen all these images of the martyred city of Madrid that I will try to show you, although mostly...
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On September 17, over 150 people attended the opening of “La colonia: a photo album of Spanish immigrants in New York, 1898–1945” at NYU’s King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center. Curated by ALBA board member James D. Fernández, “La colonia” uses the family archives of seven descendants of Spanish immigrants to...
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Looking Back at the Spanish Civil War is a collection of the first 10 Len Crome annual lectures sponsored by the IBMT. Antifascistas is more of a picture book designed to accompany a traveling...
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Joined by guests from Spain, France, Austria, Denmark, and the Netherlands, the German Fighters and Friends of the Spanish Republic 1936-1939 held their 13th annual get-together in Berlin last...
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When he volunteered in 1937 to fight against fascism during the Spanish Civil War, 20-year old Samuel Levinger was an undergraduate at Ohio State University in Columbus, a Socialist,...
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While hiking in the Glass Mountains of Mono County, California, last year, Betty Brown of Kensington, California, came upon some carvings made on aspen trees, referring to the Spanish...
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San Francisco, February 25, 2011, ALBA-Bill Susman Lecture: Marjorie Cohn; NYC, May 14, 2011: Annual Reunion and Human Rights Award; Berkeley, May 29, 2011 Freight and Salvage Bay Area Annual...
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We Spanish people will never be able to express with words the gratitude we feel for the likes of Mr. Samuel Lesser. Just one small note that I think...
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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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