Defying the devastating Covid-19 crisis, this past May 17 ALBA’s annual reunion and ALBA/Puffin Award ceremony—celebrated fully online (Facebook | YouTube)—brought together viewers from around the world. Hosted by ALBA’s María Hernández-Ojeda and Sebastiaan Faber, the celebration featured speeches by Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, Neal Rosenstein, ALBA’s executive director Mark Wallem, and ALBA governors...
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We speak with one of the No More Deaths volunteers who faced trial for helping save migrants’ lives. In August 2017, Madeline Huse and three other volunteers of the Tucson-based organization No More Deaths entered the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona to...
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“Why should one care about events taking place far away?” This is one of the “essential questions” that drive our work with teachers around the country. Together with the question “When do you stand up for what you believe in?” it captures the spirit...
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Due to the COVID-19 crisis, ALBA’s in-person institutes are being postponed until further notice. Instead, we will be offering a fully online workshop from June 30 through July 28...
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ALBA’s website at alba-valb.org has been redesigned from the ground up. The searchable online database of volunteers who left for Spain from the United States will be updated over...
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Two months ago, our New York office received a unique gift from David Geltman of Boston. Geltman is the grandson of Israel Perlman, who was a New York City...
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Marina Ginestà became world-famous late in life when a stunning photograph taken at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War surfaced in a Spanish archive. With the help of Marina’s son, the journalist Yvonne Scholten uncovers new details of Ginestà’s adventurous life.
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What Lincoln vet Len Olson taught his daughter Hannah. “Think of all the work that was done to this thing by someone’s hands.”
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Among the thousands of Spanish workers who arrived in the United States around the turn of the twentieth century were many with radical traditions rooted in their homeland, which at the time boasted one of the world’s most vibrant anarchist movements. They created scores...
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Lollie Butler is a Fellow in Literature, granted by the Arizona Commission for the Arts.
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Jack Mayerhofer is the newest member of the ALBA Board of Governors and its freshest face. A leading figure in the protection human rights and the development of education...
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On returning to Canada from the Spanish Civil War, Jim Higgins was branded a communist, hounded by the RCMP, and welcomed by his Lincoln Battalion comrades when he sought...
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We write in mourning for the loss of our dear friend, Perry Rosenstein, Founder and President of the Puffin Foundation, Ltd., who passed away in Teaneck, NJ on April...
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Recognition of the presence of Spanish Loyalists in the French Army over the last 15 years has unfortunately led to the propagation of numerous myths.
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Down Below, by Leonora Carrington. Translated by Victor Llona, with an introduction by Marina Warner. New York: NYRB, 2017.
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The Popular Front and the Barcelona 1936 Popular Olympics: Playing as if the World Were Watching, by James Stout. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2020.
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What you leave to friends and loved ones—and the causes you champion—are ways of expressing your hopes and dreams for the future and perpetuate your part in the story...
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The Volunteer, Volume 5, No. 3. We were surrounded. We were assembled on a hill. It seemed hopeless – except that the Estado Mayor was with us. “They’ve gotten...
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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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