At a moving ceremony in New York City on May 6, Rachael Guerra-Cordero de Lorenzo accepted the 2023 ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism on behalf of Indigenous Women Rising (IWR). “Indigenous people’s rights throughout the world have been trampled by colonialism, disrupting our connections with each other, our children, our land and all...
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Between workshops, screenings, and panel discussions, the past couple of months have been busy for the ALBA staff and board. Here's an overview of our programming since the last issue of The Volunteer came out.
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As this issue is going to print, the ALBA office is busy preparing a series of events for the summer and fall.
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Iago Macknik-Conde, a high school student from New York City, performed his new one-man play, The Abraham Lincoln Brigade: The First Desegregated American Fighting Force for the National History...
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Eighty-five years ago, a dozen volunteers, part of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion of the International Brigades, lost their lives while providing cover for their retreating comrades in the town of...
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The present is confusing because we don’t know what the future will look like. Still, some things are crystal clear.
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Bruce Barthol, a fixture at the ALBA/VALB reunions, was the unapologetic, rebellious, musical heart of the Tony award-winning, never silent, always revolutionary San Francisco Mime Troupe. With sardonic wit, cutting sarcasm, a vast knowledge of history, and a broad understanding of everything political, Bruce Barthol wrote lyrics that outraged, broke hearts, and inspired. A...
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Few of songs in the antifascist repertoire became as popular as the “Song of the Peat Bog Soldiers,” written ninety years ago at the Börgermoor concentration camp. A history.
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For close to ten years, the historian Michael Koncewicz, the Michael Nash Research Scholar at Tamiment Library, worked with the ALBA collection on a daily basis. In April, he left the library to become Associate Director at NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge. The author...
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After a yearslong campaign in the face of official resistance, a working-class Spanish soccer club can finally claim the cup they rightfully won during the civil war.
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Lincoln veteran Hugo Heurich (1908-1982) was born in Germany and had emigrated to the US in 1929. He arrived in Spain in March 1937 and returned to the US in...
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The day after Franco’s troops entered Barcelona, Otília Castellví, a young seamstress, woke up to a city she could barely recognize.
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Stuart Christie, who died in August 2020, was best known as the 18-year-old Scottish anarchist who, in the summer 1964, was part of an attempt to assassinate General Francisco...
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This photograph of Lincoln brigaders Bill Aalto, Alex Kunslich and Irv Goff, with a Spanish comrade, depicts something rare, possibly unique. But unfortunately, all physical copies of it are...
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At its annual board meeting in early May, ALBA welcomed its newest member, Steve Birnbaum, a Bay Area labor attorney specializing in workers’ compensation under the Longshore and Harbor...
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The Socialist Patriot: George Orwell and War, by Peter Stansky. Stanford University Press. 150 pp.
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Few people would think of the Spanish war of 1936-39 as a conflict about race. For some, it was primarily an international war, while others think of it as...
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To the Editors: I’ve just read Nevine Abraham’s article about the Palestinian volunteer Ali Abd el-Khaleq in your last number (“Liberating Palestine in Spain”). I’m very happy you touched...
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Harry Belafonte, performer and political activist, was a longtime friend of ALBA and the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade
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Freda Tanz (née Gerson), born in Pittsburgh, PA, died on March 3, 2023, at the age of 99. Freda was married to Lincoln vet Alfred Leo Tanz, who pre-deceased...
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One of the winners of ALBA’s 2022 George Watt Award, Maza Reyes, chose as his subject “Bernard Knox: Soldier and Scholar.” Another renowned historian, Peter Stansky, took the opportunity...
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To the Editors: Wonderful to see a photo of Irving Fajans and to read about him (“The Working Class Legacy of the Lincoln Brigade”, March 2023). He was a...
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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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