ALBA’s Monthly Film Discussion Series Kicks Off On July 16, ALBA hosted the first session of its new online film discussion series, sponsored by the Peter N. Carroll Anti-Fascist Education Fund, and geared toward both teachers and the general public. The series features in-depth discussions on important Spanish-Civil-War-themed films. Each session is led by...
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This issue's cover (see the print edition here) celebrates the worldwide antifascist movement. In a year where countries across the globe—including the United States—are facing a surge of far-right parties, France saw a revival of the Popular Front, a broad antifascist coalition that managed to hold the Rassemblement National at bay.
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The Virtual Museum of the Spanish Civil War—www.vscw.ca—has opened new galleries that more than double the number of objects on display. It has also added a French version to the existing Spanish and English ones. The new galleries include: The Civil War in Catalonia, https://www.vscw.ca/index.php/en/node/438, with a version in Catalan. The Civil War in...
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I found the article by Raanan Rein in the March, 2024 issue of The Volunteer to be interesting and insightful. But there was just this one phrase that raised the hackles on this Palestinian Jew’s head: “Jewish Palestine.” No such place existed. Rather, there was a place called Palestine, a multicultural home to Jews,...
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Dr. Naomi Gabrella Rucker, a loving and devoted mother and grandmother who was an accomplished psychologist and psychoanalyst, died from cancer on April 4, 2024, in Savannah, Georgia. She was 70. Naomi was born in New York City on January 6, 1954, to James Bernard “Bunny” Rucker and Helen Muenich. She spent most of...
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On April 29, members of the San Francisco Bay Area ALBA community joined staff, faculty, and students at UC Berkeley to celebrate Robert Hale Merriman, first commander of the Lincoln Brigade, in the beautiful Morrison Library on the Berkeley campus, where Merriman studied while a graduate student in economics. The gathering served to raise...
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At its annual meeting in New York City, the ALBA Board of Governors elected longtime board member Aaron Retish as its new Chair. The author of several books on revolutionary Russia, Aaron is a professor of Russian history at Wayne State, where he also oversees the Abraham Lincoln Scholarship program. For ALBA, he has...
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ALBA Celebrates Pride Month On Tuesday, June 25 at 3 pm ET/12 noon PT, ALBA will once again commemorate LGBTQ Pride month with an online event entitled “Telling Our Stories,” featuring Shannon O’Neill and Bettina Aptheker. O’Neill, Curator for the Tamiment-Wagner Collections at NYU Special Collections and ex-officio ALBA board member, will re-acquaint us with...
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“At the Barricades” Previewed at NYU On April 5, the theater company What Will the Neighbors Say? presented a selection of scenes from their current project, At the Barricades, as part of the Fridays on the Patio series at NYU’s King Juan Carlos Center. The preview of the play, which explores stories of volunteers during the...
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In a stirring ceremony on May 4th, the youth organization 18by Vote, represented by its President, Ava Mateo, received the 2024 ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism. The gathering, which took place in the historic building of the Spanish Benevolent Society on New York’s West 14th St that houses the ALBA office, also featured...
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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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By Tony Fox Teesside, an industrial region in Northeast England that in the nineteenth century grew to be a center of shipbuilding and iron and steel production, spawned no fewer than thirty International Brigade volunteers. Of the nine who were born in the borough of Stockton-on-Tees, moreover, six played leading roles in Spain: five rose to...
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The first thirty-six Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for Phase IV were submitted December 30, 2024. Phase IV is intended to focus on volunteers on whom we have minimal information. At some point in the future, I plan to resubmit some volunteers who were returned as not found or on whom no information...
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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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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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