The historian Ronald Fraser, author Blood of Spain, has died in Spain, where he lived. Blood of Spain, Tariq Ali writes in The Guardian, "is a peerless account of the Spanish civil war, carefully constructed from interviews with participants on both sides":
Conducted with a steady and consistently courteous voice, the...
Read more »
The Mexican Suitcase, Trisha Ziff’s brilliant documentary about the re-discovery in Mexico of 4,500 Spanish Civil War photographic negatives of Robert Capa, Gerda Taro and David Seymour, will be part of the line-up of "Cine México" in Tucson, Arizona, later this month (February 29-March 4). All screenings and events are free and...
Read more »
"The secrets from a vault of moldy documents long covered in bat and rat droppings could soon help to put former top Guatemalan officials behind bars, years after the country's brutal civil war ended in 1996," Mica Rosenberg and Kieran Murray write for Reuters:
Clues found in the millions of police documents...
Read more »
In a statement just published, Judge Garzón has expressed his “frontal rejection” of the ruling by his country’s Supreme Court that has sentenced him to an 11-year disbarment. This rejection is based on his understanding that the ruling has been “unjust and predetermined,” employs spurious arguments, and lacking in evidence; he vows to use...
Read more »
The Guardian's Giles Tremlett covers the protest meeting in Madrid. More reports in the LA Times, the Daily Beast, the BBC, the New York Times, and the Associated Press. ""It looks like Garzón's enemies got what they wanted," HRW's Reed Brody told Tremlett, "… the criminal prosecution of...
Read more »
María Garzón, daughter of Baltasar Garzón, has published an open letter in response to the Supreme Court ruling that sentences her father to 11 years of disbarment:
This letter is addressed to all those who today break out the champagne to toast to the disbarment of Baltasar Garzón.
To you, who...
Read more »
Judge Garzón has been sentenced to an 11 year suspension and a 2,500 euro fine for prevarication in relation to his investigation of a wide-ranging corruption ring involving the Valencia branch of the ruling conservative Partido Popular. The Supreme Court tribunal judging the case voted unanimously to find the judge guilty. This is the...
Read more »
(Read the full press release here. En castellano.) On May 13, 2012, the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives will present the Second ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism, in the amount of $100,000, to Fredy Peccerelli, Executive Director of the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation, and Kate Doyle, Senior Analyst of U.S. policy in Latin...
Read more »
Jim Jump just sent us the latest issue (pdf) of the wonderful newsletter of the International Brigade Memorial Trust, featuring coverage of the 75 anniversary celebrations, a review of the IB musical by Karl Lewkowicz and Judith Johnson, book reviews, and more. Click here to access the newsletter in pdf.
Read more »
Many thought the day would never come. And yet this past week, a handful of aging victims of Francoist repression appeared before Spain's Supreme Court to tell the horrifying stories of how their parents or grandparents were dragged from their houses and shot by Franco's forces during the Spanish Civil War. In other...
Read more »
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
sign up to receive email updates from ALBA. Support ALBA through a tax-deductible gift! To inquire about a donation, please contact the ALBA office at info@alba-valb.org or 212-674-5398.
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...
Read more »
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...
Read more »
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...
Read more »
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,...
Read more »
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...
Read more »
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...
Read more »
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...
Read more »
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...
Read more »
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...
Read more »
Please find attached photos of my visits to the graves of Lester Rowlson and Tersil Obriot last weekend. I left a brigade flag and a fresh white rose at each. ,,, I was also proud to include aspects of my Clapton CFC scarf; you might have heard of this small football club in London that...
Read more »
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
Search the Database