In dramatic news last month, Baltasar Garzón--the acclaimed Spanish lawyer and former judge who built his career on doggedly pursuing accountability for human rights crimes--agreed to head the legal defense team for Julian Assange in the Wikileaks publisher’s efforts to avoid extradition to the United States via Sweden.
If there is such a thing as...
Read more »
Spain is among the countries hardest hit by the economic meltdown. But, much like in 1936, it is also Spain that is seeing some of the most inspiring reactions to the crisis. Amidst the ruins, revolutionary initiatives flourish: new and not-so-new forms of economic...
Read more »
At worst, Hemingway & Gellhorn is the best bad movie you'll see all year. It has two stars--Nicole Kidman and Clive Owens--at the top of their game and the chemistry between them incandesces. There’s a great supporting cast too: David Strathairn as the crushable...
Read more »
When taught properly, the Spanish Civil War allows students in a Spanish class not only to learn about a major historical event but to think, write, and talk about...
Read more »
Ohio, the quintessential swing state, has long been among the places where the country’s political battle lines are most clearly drawn. This was as true in the 1930s as...
Read more »
Mike Nash, the director of New York University’s Tamiment Library, Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives and ALBA board member, died unexpectedly on July 24. He was 66. A well...
Read more »
The civil war in Spain stands at a crossroads in Europe’s “dark twentieth century”: that is, in the story of how, not so long ago, the mass killing of civilians became the brutal medium through which European societies came to terms with structure-shattering forms of change. The Spanish conflict was all about this. But...
Read more »
This spring, Público, Spain's most prominent progressive media venue, killed its print edition, announcing massive layoffs. Almost immediately, a core group of its journalists got together to found MásPúblico, a truly independent, cooperative media project. Berta del Río has the inside story.
Read more »
What prompted the artist Robert Motherwell to devote over 40 years, from 1948 until his death in 1991, to a body of work entitled “Elegies to the Spanish Republic”? Why did Motherwell, whom the noted critic Clement Greenberg considered “one of the very best...
Read more »
Some say soccer is politics and others consider it poetry. Jimmy Burns and Simon Kuper lay bare the connections between what happened on the European fields and the world...
Read more »
The Undying Flame: Ballads and Songs of the Holocaust, by Jerry Silverman.
Jerry Silverman has written much more than a songbook. He brings to life the rise of fascism and...
Read more »
The Justice Cascade: How Human Rights Prosecutions Are Changing World Politics, by Kathryn Sikkink (New York: Norton, 2011).
One of the most shocking scenes in Mad Men, the popular TV...
Read more »
With tears in my eyes I read the list of American brigaders who fought in Spain with the Spanish Republic. The only thing I can say as the grandson...
Read more »
Quick, identify the Canadian battalion that celebrates its 75th anniversary this month.
If you didn’t guess the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion you’re not alone. Few would.
Read more »
The words and deeds of the Lincoln Vets still Speak to a generation of present-day Spaniards. I received an email during the last week of August from Nacho Garcia,...
Read more »
The Spanish on-line paper El Plural is reporting a rather shocking story from Madrid. “The State Secretariat of Information has decided that the news conference planned for next week...
Read more »
In his massive novel La noche de los tiempos, Antonio Muñoz Molina crafts an unforgettable fictional character named Judith Biely. The daughter of Eastern European Jewish immigrants, Judith grew...
Read more »
Today from 3:00-4:00 p.m. WNYC AM 820 aired an interview with Abraham Lincoln Brigade veteran James Benet. The interview was aired as a segment of PRI's "The World"....
Read more »
What role has poetry played in the way we think about the Spanish Civil War? Along with photography and film, it helped bring home the image of the Spanish...
Read more »
In the wake of the untimely deaths of Alexander Cockburn and Michael Nash, we are sad to report the passing of John "Tito" Gerassi, author, journalist, historian, and...
Read more »
Planning for your will and your legacy? The Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade established their legacy with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives. Now you can continue their “good...
Read more »
In a recent exchange with a commenter on this blog, I mentioned how sometimes, when posting here, I feel like a hopeful child throwing a message in a bottle...
Read more »
Earlier this month, journalism mourned the death of the radical British journalist Alexander Cockburn, son of the journalist and Spanish Civil War veteran Claud Cockburn, aka Frank Pitcairn (1904-1981). Among...
Read more »
Amy Goodman at Democracy Now!, on the lessons of the bombing:
Seventy-five years ago, the Spanish town of Guernica was bombed into rubble. The brutal act propelled...
Read more »
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
sign up to receive email updates from ALBA. Support ALBA through a tax-deductible gift! To inquire about a donation, please contact the ALBA office at info@alba-valb.org or 212-674-5398.
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...
Read more »
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,...
Read more »
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...
Read more »
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...
Read more »
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...
Read more »
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...
Read more »
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...
Read more »
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...
Read more »
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...
Read more »
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...
Read more »
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
Search the Database