The re-publication this month of my memoir, Keeping Time: Memory, Nostalgia & the Art of History (University of Georgia Press), may be of interest to those who wonder how and why I got involved in writing about the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and the Spanish Civil War. I’ll be discussing this background on Thursday January...
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While hiking in the Glass Mountains of Mono County, California, last year, Betty Brown of Kensington, California, came upon some carvings made on aspen trees, referring to the Spanish Civil War--and apparently cut by a Basque sheepherder with anti-fascist opinions.
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When he volunteered in 1937 to fight against fascism during the Spanish Civil War, 20-year old Samuel Levinger was an undergraduate at Ohio State University in Columbus, a Socialist, and the son of a rabbi. This recently recovered letter is self-explanatory as to its purpose and intention and, fair warning, will touch most readers...
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Looking Back at the Spanish Civil War is a collection of the first 10 Len Crome annual lectures sponsored by the IBMT. Antifascistas is more of a picture book designed to accompany a traveling exhibition honoring the role of British and Irish volunteers in Spain.
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Lincoln vet Peter Schemrock died on June 24 in southern California, a few weeks before his 100th birthday. Peter was born on August 17, l910, in Dunbar, Pennsylvania. His family went back to Croatia (former Yugoslavia) when he was about four years old. Peter returned to the United States as a young man during...
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My father, Norman (Nathan) Berkowitz, died peacefully at the age of 96 on July 30, 2010. After not being able to speak for 36 hours, Norman rallied and spoke continuously for 30 minutes. His final words were directed to his grandson and they were, surprisingly, entirely in Spanish. Not surpisingly, they were about his...
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Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham. Introduction by Nick Tosches. New York Review of Books/paperback. On his way out of Spain in 1938, Bill Gresham, a Baltimore-born volunteer in the John Brown Artillery company of the International Brigades, heard a strange story from one of his comrades, Joseph “Doc” Halliday, about an alcoholic carnival...
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La Batalla Del Jarama, by Jesús González de Miguel, and Los Internacionales: English Speaking Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, edited by Antonio R. Celada, Manuel González de la Aleja, and Daniel Pastor García.
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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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Inspirational and courageous; that was the IWW. Click here then the forward arrow to listen as author Ahmed White talks with former ALBA board member Burt Cohen about White’s new book Under the Iron Heel: The Wobblies and the Capitalist War on Radical Workers on the podcast keepingdemocracyalive.com.
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Nobody remembers Lloyd Mallan. I came across his name while writing a book on poet- playwright Federico García Lorca’s iconic afterlife. Mallan’s piece on the poet’s assassination, published in 1939, was instrumental in spreading to the U.S. and Canada a highly embellished narrative of poetic martyrdom that helped shape the public image of Lorca....
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ALBA is proud to partner with the Spanish government in the publication of a 60-page curricular guide for high-school students and teachers in Spain as part of a government-sponsored series. Highlighting the experiences of U.S. volunteers in the International Brigades, the guide invites readers to use these stories as an inspiration to set...
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For an English translation of this article, see here.
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On May 30, 1937, the Republican freighter Ciudad de Barcelona was hit by a torpedo fired by a lurking Nationalist submarine. The torpedo tore a gaping hole in the ship and it rapidly sank. A Republican seaplane drove the submarine away with a depth charge attack, then landed and began rescuing men in the...
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Dr. Irving Busch (1896-1960), a graduate of Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, volunteered to serve in Spain with the American Medical Bureau. In Spain, he served with the Republican Medical Services. Both before and after Spain Busch was an amateur photographer and he carried his camera along with him. After his death...
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The picture of a young man in a jaunty hat and a big smile stared out of the 1978 issue of The Volunteer. The photo was accompanied by a request for information about Sidney Lorraine who died in Spain during the course of The Retreats. There is no evidence of any replies. Sidney Hotchkiss...
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Many American veterans went on to serve in WWII and Korea. This list is a work in progress. Those marked with an “*” were killed during the war. Office of Strategic Services Aalto, William Oliver WWII US Army, joined December 1941 served as 1st SGT transfer to OSS April 12, 1942; Dismissed after he...
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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 with the James Connolly Section of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion. Inspired by the sacrifice of his fellow countryman and fellow Irish Socialist Republican, Eddie set...
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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 such knowledge about a game once played by Napoleon on the island of St. Helena, was an uplifting and inspiring experience.” In his memoir To...
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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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