Writers and soldiers alike saw Spain as the first battlefield of World War II. In the title essay of his new book, excerpted here, historian Peter N. Carroll traces the war’s legacy, from the shocking bombing of the Basque town of Guernica by German and Italian air forces to the attacks on civilians and...
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John Hovan, one of the first veterans of the Lincoln Brigade to take advantage of the Spanish law granting citizenship to foreign volunteers of the International Brigades, died in Providence, Rhode Island, on March 27. He was 97.
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Racial equality and civil rights live at the core of the Lincoln Brigade. About 90 African Americans volunteered to serve in the ranks—as soldiers, drivers, mechanics, nurses, doctors, journalists, and social workers. The only prominent entertainer who visited the U.S. volunteers in Spain was Paul Robeson.
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Carl Geiser, political commissar of the Lincoln Battalion, prisoner of war held in Spain until 1939, and author of Prisoners of the Good Fight, left the letters he wrote to his family to the ALBA collection. The complete letters, edited by Peter N. Carroll and Fraser Ottanelli, have just published by Kent State University...
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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 by rote or memorization, but by confronting directly original primary documents.
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Hurricane Sandy swamped the schools of Bergen County, New Jersey last November, forcing postponement of ALBA’s teaching institute, but the spring term brought an exciting revival as 22 Spanish language and social studies high school educators attended a lively one-day session at the Bergen County Academies, organized by administrator Tim Casperson, in Hackensack.
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Jim Benét, lifelong journalist and veteran of the American Regiment de Tren (Transport) in the International Brigades, died in December near his home in northern California of a blood infection. He was 98. Born in New York to a literary family on both sides—his father was William Rose Benét, a poet; his uncle, Stephen...
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Harry W. Randall, Jr., once the chief photographer of the special photographic unit of the Fifteenth Brigade during the Spanish Civil War, died at a care facility in Snowflake, Arizona on November 11. His vast collection of photographs—which included not only his own camera work but a large array of negatives, albums of prints,...
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After organizing three successful professional development programs for high school teachers this spring—in Seattle, Tampa, and Oberlin, Ohio—ALBA launched three more in the autumn term in Alameda County, California, New York City, and Bergen County, New Jersey. As in the past, teachers are welcoming the presentation of fresh historical source material from the ALBA...
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We know, of course, that he gave his talent as a writer to support the Republican side.
But there are at least two additional things Hemingway did that have attracted little attention.
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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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The family of Paul Andrew Mooney (1910-1961) is searching for documentation to substantiate information he provided to his family about serving in the International Brigades. Paul Mooney was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. He graduated from Hughes High School in 1929 and attended the University of Cincinnati in 1929, 1935 and 1936. In...
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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 the rank of Lieutenant...
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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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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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