The National Library in Madrid has recently digitized over 100 photographs taken at San Pedro de Cardeña, the concentration camp for the International Brigade prisoners which the fascists established at the site of an abandoned monastery in Burgos. This startling photograph was taken during April 1938, inside San Pedro, shortly following the fascist capture...
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Ronald V. Dellums, a tireless advocate for peace, justice, and equality, served his Oakland, California district for 27 years in the House of Representatives. A vigorous supporter of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, he carried on their example when he stated, at the beginning of his career in Congress, that he was committed...
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“Without ethical consciousness the audience is only sensual, one of aesthetes… without ethical consciousness, the painter is only a decorator,” declared Robert Motherwell, the creator of the monumental series “Elegy to the Spanish Republic”, which was recently on display at the Dominique Levy Gallery in NYC, where it ran from November 2015 through January...
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The first thing you see as you approach the Civil War Shelters Museum on Gisbert Street in Cartagena are the trees growing out of the mountainside. Their unusual network of thick, exposed roots pushing out of the ground suggests that these ancient trees might have been around since the Bronze Age, witnessing Hannibal as...
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Last October I joined the IBMT tour headed by Pauline Fraser and Charles Jepson, which took us along the trenches of Quito, the battle sites of Belchite, and included a visit to the new Battle of the Ebro Museum at Fayon. In the spirit of the Brigades, we were truly an international group, comprised...
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Good news from Ireland: The International Brigade Commemoration Committee is pleased to announce that in cooperation with the Belfast City Council a stained glass window will be unveiled later this year to the men from Belfast who went to join the International Brigades in Spain and to the men and women who supported Spanish...
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The voices of British Battalion’s Charlie Donnelly, Bob Doyle, John Cornford, Jim Haughey and Dolores Ibárruri (La Pasionaria) were heard again at the Shankill Road Library in Belfast this August. Moving readings of their poetry and memoirs were delivered by Marlene Sideway, IBMT President and actor, Dr. Sinead Morrissey, Belfast’s first poet Laureate, and...
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On February 1, 2014 I had the honor of bringing fraternal greetings from ALBA to the International Brigades Commemoration Committee, where an overflow crowd met to honor these men from Belfast who joined common cause in the earliest battlefields in the war against fascism in Spain. The International Brigades Commemoration Committee exists to...
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The visitor enters a small passageway leading to the 17 room Pablo Casals Museum in Vendrell, Spain, at once immersed in cello music and a voiceover narration from the diary of a young Casals. The music surrounds a display of some of the first instruments belonging to the artist. This multisensory approach to the...
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On July 8, a delegation organized by Friends and Family of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade met with Juan Ramón Martínez Salazar, the Consul General of Spain and Íñigo Ramírez de Haro Valdés, Attaché for Cultural Affairs, to follow up on the letter to the Ambassador protesting the removal of the IB monument in Madrid,...
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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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A long-time ALBA supporter contacted the office to inquire about a possible volunteer Herbert Rathman. In the mid-1960s, Rathman was the Science Chairman at Rhodes Preparatory School, a private school located at 11 West 54th Street in Manhattan. Rathman had told his students that he was a veteran of the Spanish Civil War and served...
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ALBA wholeheartedly rejects white supremacy and racial inequality. We condemn the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, and the systemic police brutality in black communities throughout the United States.
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We write in mourning for the loss of our dear friend, Perry Rosenstein, Founder and President of the Puffin Foundation, Ltd., who passed away in Teaneck, NJ on April 3 after a brief struggle with the COVID-19 virus.
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The Volunteer, Volume 5, No. 3. We were surrounded. We were assembled on a hill. It seemed hopeless – except that the Estado Mayor was with us. “They’ve gotten us out of tough spots before.” That was the general comment. I was particularly aware of Dave Doran (i) who seemed so calm and unperturbed...
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The Volunteer, V. 5, N. 3 Editor’s note: Here are more excerpts from the log which Sid Kaufman kept in the last days of the war. You will remember, from the transcript of his tape which we printed in our last issue, that Sid got out of Spain much later than most of us....
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The Albuquerque Museum hosted ALBA’s Shouts from the Wall: Posters and Photographs Brought Back from the Spanish Civil War from September 8, 1996 to October 27, 1996. Four biographical sketches were prepared to highlight volunteers from New Mexico. Mildred Rackley (1906-1992) and the Spanish Civil...
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The Albuquerque Museum hosted ALBA’s Shouts from the Wall: Posters and Photographs Brought Back from the Spanish Civil War from September 8, 1996 to October 27, 1996. Four biographical sketches were prepared to highlight volunteers from New Mexico. Henry George Rauert Passport address: 139 Candelaria, Santa...
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The Albuquerque Museum hosted ALBA’s Shouts from the Wall: Posters and Photographs Brought Back from the Spanish Civil War from September 8, 1996 to October 27, 1996. Four biographical sketches were prepared to highlight volunteers from New Mexico. Ralph Lawrence Neafus Passport address: 110...
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The Albuquerque Museum hosted ALBA’s Shouts from the Wall: Posters and Photographs Brought Back from the Spanish Civil War from September 8, 1996 to October 27, 1996. Four biographical sketches were prepared to highlight volunteers from New Mexico. Virgil Ivan McCasland Passport address: Tucumcari,...
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The Volunteer for Liberty January 13, 1938 Enrique Lister, commander of the famous division that bears his name, has been promoted from the rank of major to that of lieutenant-colonel. His elevation is the first to take place under the new decree of the Ministry of Defense, which changes the rule that men who...
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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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