A Madrid court order to remove the recently installed monument honoring the foreign volunteers who supported the Republic during the Spanish Civil War has sparked worldwide outrage. Spain’s Friends of the International Brigades (AABI) report.
Read more »
A broad coalition of organizations, including both ALBA and Baltasar Garzón's new foundation, is calling for a commission to establish, once and for all, the truth about the crimes of Francoism. Will they be successful? And if they are, what can a...
Read more »
On July 3, ALBA became the first organization from the United States to join the Plataforma por la Comisión de la Verdad sobre los Crímenes del Franquismo (Platform for the Truth Commission about the Crimes of Francoism). This initiative is the first step toward...
Read more »
Milton Wolff, last commander of the Abraham Lincoln battalion, marveled that it took him more years to write his memoir of the Spanish Civil War (Another Hill) than it...
Read more »
The new Common Core Standards provide ALBA with an opportunity to help more high school teachers introduce the Spanish Civil War into their classes. Students will study history not...
Read more »
Bay Area ALBA Reunion, October 6
This Land is Our Land: Internationalism, Citizenship, Resistance; a commemorative celebration marking the 77th anniversary of the Spanish Civil War
Join us!
Read more »
The wandering Dutchman Bart van der Schelling painted with Willem de Kooning, sang with Woody Gunthrie and Pete Seeger, fought fascists in the Lincoln Battalion, and is credited with the lyrics to "Viva la Quince Brigada"--yet much of his life remains shrouded in mystery. Yvonne Scholten investigates.
Read more »
As Congress returns from its summer vacation, for the first time in a generation it will confront the meaningful prospect of enacting immigration reform legislation. That reform is even a possibility is due in large part to the courage, militancy, and strategic vision...
Read more »
On July 25, 1937, the New York Times’ John T. McManus interviewed Joris Ivens, a young Dutch movie director who had just arrived in the United States. What sparked the interview was the premiere of The Spanish Earth, a documentary about the Spanish Civil...
Read more »
Get to know two members of the ALBA community.
Read more »
‘Homage to Catalonia’ Praised for literary merit but criticised for narrow focus at Len Crome Memorial Lecture
Read more »
In the first days of Augusto Pinochet’s 1973 coup, Chilean Army officer Pedro Pablo Barrientos tortured and killed popular folk singer Víctor Jara. Jara, a respected artist who had joined...
Read more »
Savage Coast by Muriel Ruykeyser. The Feminist Press, 2013.
Read more »
The Life and Death of the Spanish Republic, by Henry Buckley. (London, New York: I.B. Tauris, 2013). Introduction by Paul Preston.
Read more »
A Short History of the Spanish Civil War, by Julián Casanova (IB Tauris, London, 2012) £12.99
Read more »
Physical Resistance: A Hundred Years of Anti-Fascism, by Dave Hann (Zero Books, Winchester, 2013) £18.99*
Read more »
Norman Bethune in Spain: Commitment, Crisis and Conspiracy, by David Lethbridge (Sussex Academic Press, Eastbourne, 2013) £25
Read more »
The Spanish Civil War: Exhuming a Buried Past, edited by Anindya Raychaudhuri (University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 2013) £90
Read more »
Franco’s International Brigades: Adventurers, Fascists and Christian Crusaders in the Spanish Civil War, by Christopher Othen (Hurst & Company, London, 2013) £15.99
Read more »
In and Out of the Lion’s Den: Poverty, War and Football by Julie Ryan (2013) £9.99
Read more »
In Spain with Orwell: George Orwell and the Independent Labour Party Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939, by Christopher Hall (Tippermuir Books, Perth, 2013) £12.50
Read more »
From Spain we have received the sad news of the passing of Gervasio Puerta, vice-president of the Asociación de Amigos de las Brigadas Internacionales (AABI), who dedicated his entire...
Read more »
Paco de Onís of Skylight Pictures, who together with Pamela Yates and Peter Kinnoy made Granito: How to Nail a Dictator, writes: We filmed the entire genocide trial of General...
Read more »
We have just received the sad news that Toshi Seeger, Pete Seeger’s wife, passed away on July 9. Mark Moss at singout.org writes: She was a mother, an organizer,...
Read more »
This week the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas–which houses one of the largest humanities collections in the world–announced the acquisition of the papers of Barbara Probst Solomon (b....
Read more »
On August 24, a sea of people packed around the Reflecting Pool at the Lincoln Memorial to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington where Dr. Martin...
Read more »
"Now we're far from that valley of sorrow/But its mem'ry we'll never forget/In the midst of the struggles around us/Let's remember our glorious dead." The lyrics of the International...
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