Berkeley, California, flagship campus of the University of California, knows how to stage a political fight. To mark the 80th Anniversary of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the campus featured a spectacular series of events—lectures, panel discussions, archival exhibitions from the Bancroft Library, film screenings, and poetry readings—honoring the volunteers of the...
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Eighty years ago an epic struggle began, largely to be overwritten in public memory by World War II and smeared by the anti-communist witch-hunts that followed. Now a dramatic and intensely political musical play, Heart of Spain, ran at the Zellerbach Playhouse on the University...
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It is raining in New York, the day after the election, as we go to press. On the streets, people go about their business with a grim expression and reddened eyes. History can weigh on us; it can shock us as it suddenly turns—but...
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Two undergraduates and one graduate student have won the George Watt Memorial Essay Award with outstanding projects on the Cold War, the Franco Regime, and refugee aid.
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This November, ALBA organized three full-day professional development institutes for high school teachers in New York City, New Jersey, and Seattle, Washington, led by Peter N. Carroll, James D....
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Sixteen years ago I moved to New York, not as an economic migrant nor as a political exile, but as a student. The years went by and I stayed....
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What will Governor Dalrymple sacrifice for the Dakota Access Pipeline? Activist and former Green Party candidate Winona LaDuke reminds us that Standing Rock is only the most recent chapter in a long history of dispossession. “The Lakota people have survived many invasions.”
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Pablo Durá is the author of The Lincoln Brigade, a new graphic novel based on the life story of Oliver Law, of which we are proud to feature an excerpt in this issue.
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Among the American medical volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, Dr. Leo Eloesser, a thoracic surgeon affiliated with San Francisco General Hospital, organized a team of west coast doctors and nurses and brought his considerable experience of military medicine to Republican Spain. His extraordinary...
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On a sunny Saturday, October 22, the French International Brigades Association, ACER (Amis des Combattants en Espagne Républicaine), corrected a longstanding injustice. The city of Paris, home of the...
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In 2009 an anonymous black International Brigades volunteer became famous when his picture garnered the attention of the international news media. The Spanish government wanted to give the photograph...
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The archives of the Communist International in Moscow, now partly available online, hold many small treasures. When we found the news bulletin published by a group of Cuban veterans...
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Sadly, we have now reached the end of an era. With the death of 98-year old Stan Hilton, there are no longer any British veterans of the International Brigades...
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As a sergeant in the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, Alex Maclure firmly aligned himself with New Zealand volunteers in the International Brigades. In the above letter, published in the Communist Party...
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Dear Editor, After 25 years of receiving and enjoying The Volunteer I was saddened by the unbalanced and misleading article by Eric R. Smith entitled How to understand the...
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Adam Hochschild, Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Memory and Cultural History of the Spanish Civil War: Realms of Oblivion, edited by Aurora G. Morcillo, Boston: Brill, 2014
ALBA can’t do all it does without our generous donors. Fortunately, there are many ways to support our work, from our monthly donor program to gifts and bequests–and of...
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In the aftermath of the Great War, President Woodrow Wilson’s dream was to make the world “safe for democracy”. Not exactly for democracy in itself as a system of...
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Blast from the Past is an ongoing series of posts reprinting articles from historical issues of The Volunteer. The Noblest Fruit of Them All by Jim Persoff The Volunteer, Volume...
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In the foggy morning, we were greeted by the Mayor of Torija and the President of Guadalajara Memorial in front of the town hall. The town awarded Freedom Medals...
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The IBMT made special note of Delmer Berg’s passing at their annual AGM in Dublin on Oct. 15. IBMT Chairman Richard Baxell called on me to say a few...
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An official inauguration of a monument to the International Brigades was held in front of the Austerlitz train station in Paris on October 22. This was the place where the International Brigaders rode...
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Blast from the Past is an ongoing series of posts reprinting articles from historical issues of The Volunteer. “Remembrance Day” by Tom Kozar, November 11, 1988 Originally published in The...
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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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