Yesterday was the last of the three-day workshop. I look forward to participating in future ALBA events. I already started teaching the Spanish Civil War and used the ALBA website.
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Mac-Pap: Memoir of a Canadian in the Spanish Civil War. By Ronald Liversedge. Edited by David Yorke. (Vancouver: New Star Books, 2013).
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In June 1935, nearly 2,000 young, unemployed, and angry men living in western Canada and intent on demonstrating their discontent hitched a ride on a train of boxcars to Ottawa. The men who participated in the “On-to-Ottawa Trek” were fed up with the abhorrent conditions in Prime Minister Richard Bennett’s ‘relief camps’ and...
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On November 6, the Spanish delegation to the United Nations said that it would not review the 1977 law which gave amnesty for political crimes committed during the civil war and General Francisco Franco's dictatorship. According to Baltasar Garzon, at least 152,000 civilians living in territory controlled by Franco's Nationalist forces disappeared between...
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Earlier this month, Pope Francis 'beatified' over 500 Spanish Clerics 'martyred' in the Spanish Civil War, despite opposition asserting that the Catholic Church has not yet apologized for its role in the war and Francisco Franco's dictatorship. In spite of the UN's recent efforts to open a full public investigation of Franco's crimes,...
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Today, October 22, marks 100 years since Robert Capa's birth in Budapest, Hungary. One of the most famed photojournalists of the 20th century, Capa's reputation has been challenged in recent years by claims that the "Falling Soldier," arguably his most famous photo, was staged. Earlier today, the International Center of Photography released one...
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Last month, an Argentinian judge named María Romilda Servini de Cubría, called for Antonio González Pacheco's extradition. One of the Franco's most notorious torturers, Antonio González Pacheco, was reportedly spotted running in a Madrid half-marathon.
On Sunday, El Mundo newspaper published a photograph of González Pacheco that shocked many of his alleged...
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In 2011, a Chilean judge requested the extradition of Former American Navy Captain Ray E. Davis in connection with the murders of Americans Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi after Pinochet's 1973 coup. However, it appears that Davis had been living in a Santiago nursing home for the last year, before dying of a "multisystemic...
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Jules Paivio, the last Canadian veteran of the Spanish Civil War, died last week at the age of 97. He volunteered to fight for the Spanish Republic at the age of 17. His family had taught him to "believe in justice, liberty and fair play for all." Yet, when asked why he volunteered...
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Today marks the 40th anniversary of Augusto Pinochet's CIA-backed coup, overthrowing the democratically elected presidency of Salvador Allende. In the weeks that followed, thousands of leftists were arrested, beaten, and murdered, including the famous folk singer Víctor Jara. After tracking down Jara's murderer to the United States, Jara's widow Joan filed a lawsuit against...
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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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Manus O'Riordan, Ireland Secretary of the International Brigade Memorial Trust, writes about "The Radical Paul Robeson" and the Spanish Civil War in The Tribune. Read the article here.
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Since 2014, volunteers have visited the graves of Lincolns and honored them on Memorial Day by putting down a simple white rose and an International Brigades flag. This year, ALBA helped advertise this project through a link to the online version of the Volunteer Newsletter1. The response from that approach has been rewarding and...
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Due to the untiring work of Ray Hoff, ALBA’s volunteer data base now has three new photographs. Hoff who identified and contacted family members of Isadore “Jack” Ehrenberg, and Robert Gavin and his younger brother Eugene Victor Gavin who provided the photographs. Family members are encouraged to review the data entries and provide additional...
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Veteran Joe Brandt’s pamphlet Black Americans in the Spanish People’s War Against Fascism. 1936-1939 was published by the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigades in 1979. It was the first attempt to document the history of African American volunteers in the Spanish Civil War. The Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of African American History and...
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African Americans in the Spanish Civil War: “This Ain’t Ethiopia, but It’’ll Do” by Danny Duncan Collum was published in 1991. In the thirty years since the book was originally published researchers have identified additional African American volunteers and removed others added to the list in error. The updated names are listed below along...
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Volunteer for Liberty V. 1, No. 3, April 1938 Commander Douglas Earl Seacord by Doug Roach Half a world lies between the harbor of Provincetown, Massachusetts and the Jarama valley. Provincetown, first landing place of the Pilgrims in their search for liberty is – a summer resort frequented by artists, writers and professional people....
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I am searching for information about Morton ‘Vic’ Vicker. I have reason to believe he was in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War. I did not meet Vic until November of 1969 in Aguacate, Cuba, on the first Venceremos Brigade.* We bunked together, cut cane together, and spent a lot of time talking. I was...
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A preview of a Q&A with Robin D.G. Kelley that will appear in the December issue of The Volunteer.
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Guardian Newspapers has published two reviews of the new book by Giles Tremlett, ‘The International Brigades: Fascism, Freedom and the Spanish Civil War’. On Saturday 3 October, The Guardian’s review by Dan Hancox gave the following misleading impression: ‘The brigades drew an astonishing array of international literary figures – Orwell, Hemingway, Spender, Auden’. None of...
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The University of Washington’s Stroum Center for Jewish Studies added part of Dr. Joseph Butwin’s oral history project to its Digital Jewish Studies online collection in 2018. Butwin noted that “initiative” for the project came the “Vets themselves.” The web pages discuss the project’s history and offers individual pages on five veterans: George Watt,...
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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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