When a friend first pointed me to Tina Paterson’s colorized portraits of International Brigade volunteers, I was skeptical. Yet the images are disturbing and strangely powerful. Throwing time out of joint, they undermine the idea that the Civil War is a remote historical occurrence.
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ALBA is gearing up for two great Bay Area-based events! Join us for a Gathering at the Monument on Sunday, August 22 to celebrate the newly restored National Monument to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade on the San Francisco Embarcadero (1:30 PM PDT to 4:00 PM PDT)....
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This summer, ALBA teaching staff offered the third fully online professional development workshop on “The United States and World Fascism: Human Rights from the Spanish Civil War to Nuremberg and Beyond,” together with Rich Cairn of the Collaborative for Educational Services. Some 20 secondary...
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The Susman lecture this year was delivered by Marc Fasanella, son of ALB veteran and artist Ralph Fasanella, who discussed his father’s life and work, including his experience during...
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About 30 years ago, I spent a long day driving from Long Island to Brandeis and back with two Lincoln vets—Bill Susman and George Watt—when the conversation turned to...
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Dear Friends, “Bringing the past alive” is one way to describe ALBA’s mission. Everything we do, from our lecture series and film screenings to our publications and educational work,...
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In 2019, Shannon O’Neill became the curator for the Tamiment-Wagner Collections of the New York University Special Collections that houses the ALBA archives. She previously worked at Barnard College, the Los Angeles Public Library, and the Atlantic City Free Public Library.
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When people think about mass graves in Spain, most relate them to the war years. Yet an estimated 50,000 victims were executed after the war. This summer, I visited a cemetery where the ARMH are exhuming the remains of some of these victims.
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Thirty years ago, I traveled around the United States equipped with a cheap tape recorder I spoke to 39 Jewish-American veterans of the Spanish Civil War. When they went to Spain in 1937, very few of the people I spoke to would have invoked...
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It has taken him twenty years, but the book is finally here. The Biographical Dictionary of Argentine volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, by Jerónimo Boragina, has just been...
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Simon Deefholts and Kathryn Phillips-Miles are the driving force behind the Clapton Press, which has been issuing “Memories of 1930s Spain,” including both previously unpublished memoirs and new editions...
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Kurzke's memoir The Good Comrade was published this past May by the Clapton Press, after having been tucked away for years, known only to a small number of specialist...
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Over the past couple of years, I have worked with history teacher David Hanna at Stuyvesant High School to create a website dedicated to preserving the memories of the...
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Fighting for Spain: The International Brigades in the Civil War, 1936–1939, and The People’s Army in the Spanish Civil War: A Military History of the Republic and International Brigades...
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American Commander in Spain: Robert Hale Merriman and the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, by Marion Merriman and Warren Lerude. Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2020.
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Tamiment will continue being able to serve only current NYU students, faculty and staff through August 31, 2021. We do not know at this point what access will look like...
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Last May 23, our dear veteran Josep Almudéver Mateu died in France. At 101 he was, as far as we know, the very last surviving veteran of the International...
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Eddie O’Neill was born in the same County Tyrone neighborhood as the poet Charlie Donnelly (1914-1937), who was killed in action at Jarama while serving as a platoon leader...
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“A prominent competitive player in the United States gave a series of lectures and played over famous games from the past. To hear him talking—in our squalid surroundings—with...
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With the submission of the August batch freedom of information act (FOIA) requests ALBA will have filed for over 1,000 passport records of American volunteers. Due to the ongoing...
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A short video of the graves visited in 2021. Memorial Day is the day traditionally set aside to remember Americans who served in the military....
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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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