The Foreign Language Department’s Spanish program at El Camino Community College (Torrance, California) is commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Spanish Civil War with a series of activities and lectures from November 8 to 12. The five-day program includes talks on mass graves, pictorial art, military fortifications, news coverage in the US of the conflict,...
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First to Fight: American Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) Explore this pivotal event in Spanish–and world–history and culture! Parallels to today include Syria, Ukraine, & the rise of rightwing populism. Oct. 29 – Northampton – Breakouts in Spanish and in English. $25. Lunch and materials provided. Led by Kelley Brown, Easthampton HS....
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“It was always rumored that my uncle fought in Spain, but now we finally know for sure. I’ve had an amazing number of touching reactions of that type,” Yvonne Scholten says, “especially from family members.” Scholten, a Dutch journalist, is the driving force behind a new biographical dictionary of Dutch volunteers in Spain that...
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Acceptance speech by Jeremy Scahill on receiving the 2016 ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism. May 7, 2016. New York. Lydia just pushed me to come here first (crowd laughs.) I really, in all candor, I feel like I shouldn’t be here receiving this award, particularly because I think that my co-recipient, Lydia, is one of the...
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In the spring of 1937 some twenty students from Brooklyn College volunteered to fight in Spain. This unique exhibit, curated by Prof. Alejandro Alonso, in partnership with ALBA, will cover three aspects: political life on campus in the 30s; the impact of the Spanish Civil War and the debates and confrontations that took place there; and the presence of Spanish Exiles...
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Why did the American volunteers in the Spanish Civil War name themselves after Abraham Lincoln? Who first came up with the idea of the “Lincoln Battalion” and when? New information is complicating the long-accepted account.
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Delmer Berg (December 20, 1915 – February 28, 2016), the last known surviving veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, died peacefully in his California home on Sunday, February 28. Berg followed his service in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) with three years in the Pacific theater of World War Two and a lifetime of labor and...
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By Gloria Leticia Diaz, via FNS News: Anais Huerta says she would really like to know what happened to her great uncle. Felix Llorente Gutierrez was 27 years old when he was detained by followers of General Francisco Franco in Medina del Campo, Spain, on July 28, 1936. Less than one month later, on...
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“Even a superficial reading of an article written by a Communist or a conversation with one will probably reveal the use of some of the following expressions,” warned a 1955 pamphlet published by the U.S. First Army Headquarters that aimed to teach its readers “How to Spot a Communist.” The expressions that were a...
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In the fall of 2014, Stanley Payne and Jesús Palacios published a new biography of Francisco Franco. Spanish historian Ángel Viñas, who was finishing up his own book on the dictator, was appalled to find their account riddled with “the most flagrant and, at times, grotesque mistakes, omissions, and misleading interpretations.” This past September,...
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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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