Filmmaker Oliver Stone offered a moving encomium to the volunteers of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in his keynote speech at the 77th annual reunion held at Pace University in New York on May 5, where United We Dream received the annual ALBA / Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism (video | pictures).
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Courage and fear, hope and despair: those were the recurring emotions expressed by five panelists who spoke about immigration reform at a round-table discussion organized by ALBA in New York on May 5. Speaking from the trenches, they confirmed that much has been achieved....
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Michael Ratner, President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and filmmaker Oliver Stone spoke at ALBA’s event in New York, highlighting the connection between the courage of the Lincoln Brigade’s internationalist activism and the courage of the activists of United We Dream. See...
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President Barack Obama has escalated the Bush administration’s use of targeted killing with drones and other methods. Drones, which avoid U.S. casualties, are more palatable to the American people...
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Hurricane Sandy swamped the schools of Bergen County, New Jersey last November, forcing postponement of ALBA’s teaching institute, but the spring term brought an exciting revival as 22 Spanish...
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Several hundred undocumented migrants die each year of heatstroke or at the hands of organized crime as they attempt to cross the deserts of Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. Law...
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Paul Preston is impossible to avoid. Author of twelve books, editor of several more, and director of an important series on the subject, he towers mile-high in the landscape of Spanish Civil War scholarship. And yet in person he can be quite elusive. A previously arranged meeting for an interview in London first had...
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Among many other Spanish Civil War commemorations this year, it may be interesting to note that July 2013 marks the 75th anniversary of one of the conflict’s most bizarre episodes. In December 2005, Professor Sandie Holguín of the University of Oklahoma published a piece...
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Francisco Franco, who ruled Spain until 1975, was obsessed with the notion of a powerful international conspiracy—led by Jews, Masons, Communists, and other “reds”— against the “new” Spain that emerged from his victory in the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39. He referred to this...
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Los brigadistas chinos en la Guerra Civil: La llamada de España (1936-1939), by Hwei-Ru Tsou and Len Tsou, was published this month by Los Libros de la Catarata in Madrid,...
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There were mixed feelings at the end of last year among those of us dedicated to preserving the memory of the 2,500 International Brigade volunteers from Britain and Ireland....
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“This is the most photogenic war anyone ever has seen.”* Estas palabras transcritas por Claud Cockburn carecían, en plena guerra civil, de perspectiva, mas no de perspicacia. Cierta magia...
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Luis García Montero is one of Spain’s most prominent public intellectuals. A successful poet and frequent political columnist for the progressive online paper Público, he is also a leading...
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George Sossenko, who joined the fight in Spain at the young age of 16 and remained active in the fight for social justice until the end of his life,...
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Marcus Judson Billings was born on June 10, 1914 in Redlands, California to O. S. Billings, a printer and the former Francis Devore, a housewife. He grew up...
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Unlikely Warriors: The British in the Spanish Civil War and the Struggle against Fascism. By Richard Baxell. (London, Aurum, 2012).
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Skeletons in the Closet, Skeletons in the Ground: Repression, Victimization and Humiliation in a Small Andalusian Town. By Richard Barker. (London: Sussex Academic Press, 2012).
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As a child growing up in Madrid, I frequently used to ask my mom, María Luisa Jerez Marín, about her parents, whom I had never met. My grandmother, Modesta...
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Ralph Fasanella’s first gallery retrospective celebrates New York City’s bridges, skylines, and tenements; your neighbors, my neighbors, our memories and our aspirations. These pictures draw you in to conversations. ...
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The Spanish authorities are not investigating crimes under international law committed during the Civil War and Franco period, sending the message that impunity for human rights abuses is allowed,...
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The Canadian War Museum has just opened a new exhibit featuring the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, a group of Canadians volunteers who fought in the Spanish Civil War.
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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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