For more than 80 years, historians have ignored the important role played by thousands of women soldiers in the People’s Army of the Spanish Republic. A new dissertation takes a crucial first step to correct the record.
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Dear Friends, Putting together a quarterly magazine is a surefire way to make time fly. As this issue goes to print, your editors are already thinking about the next one, approaching authors, agreeing on word counts, setting deadlines—before we know it, another three months have passed. Since we last wrote, the US Supreme Court...
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At ALBA’s 2022 online gala, I spoke with the Spanish filmmaker Almudena Carracedo, who together with Robert Bahar created The Silence of Others (2018), an award-winning documentary about memory, truth, and justice. Here is the entire conversation.
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The Russian invasion of Ukraine—which ALBA forcefully condemned—has unleashed a fascinating debate about historical parallels with the Spanish Civil War. A sampling.
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Peter N. Carroll—renowned historian, poet, and (co-)editor of this magazine for more than twenty years—has been involved with ALBA for four decades. Time for a tribute.
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Dear friends, As this issue goes to press, ALBA is wrapping up a busy, program-filled spring. A highlight, no doubt, was our online gala on April 30, which included the ALBA/Puffin Award for Life After Hate, along with stirring music and thought-provoking conversations about the relevance today of the legacy embodied by the International...
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To the Editors: I am writing to congratulate ALBA for the terrific workshop on Hemingway and the Lincoln Brigade, in the Perry Rosenstein Cultural Series. The many names of Lincolns rang many bells for me and reminded me of the time I worked with Marion Wachtel to write our book on Robert Merriman, American Commander in...
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To the Editors: While there have been many recent tributes to my late partner Manus O’Riordan in the Irish media, including President D. Michael Higgins’ own website, and from the many organizations in which he was involved, such as the IBMT and his union, SIPTU, The Volunteer’s article on Manus held very special significance...
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Spanish author Almudena Grandes, who died in November, aged 61, was famed for her novels portraying ordinary Spaniards’ experience of civil war and dictatorship. Against attempts to veil the past in silence, she insisted that unearthing historical memory was fundamental to building a democratic Spain.
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In December 2021 and January 2022, the South Florida Chamber Ensemble (SFCE) performed Extranjeros, a program about the Spanish Civil War and the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Written by Myrna Meeroff and produced in partnership with ALBA, the program featured music and texts from Manuel de Falla, María Rodrigo, Joaquín Rodrigo, Federico García Lorca, Joaquín...
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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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