The Guardian's Giles Tremlett, author of Ghosts of Spain, asks Barcelona publishers, among other things, why Spanish writers are still so obsessed with the legacy of the Spanish civil war. Listen to the podcast here.
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The BBC reports:
Former Argentine Gen Eduardo Cabanillas has been sentenced to life in prison for running a notorious detention centre during military rule in 1976-83. Three former intelligence officers were also convicted of murder, torture and illegal imprisonment. Around 200 left-wing activists were kidnapped and taken to the Automotores Orletti secret prison...
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Tereixa Constenla has a lengthy piece in today's El Pais on Prof. Paul Preston's new book, The Spanish Holocaust, which tallies, narrates, and explains the tremendous cost in human lives and suffering of the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath:
Lo averiguado hoy nada tiene que ver con la verdad oficial asentada...
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From Colombia Reports:
Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon will travel to Colombia to work as an advisor to the Organization of American States (OAS) on human rights issues in the country and to monitor the paramilitary demobilization process, El Tiempo reported Thursday. No date has been set for his arrival though his...
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Images have begun to appear in the media of the set of Philip Kaufman's new film on Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn. Rolling Stone published this photo taken earlier this week, showing Nicole Kidman (Gellhorn), Clive Owens (Hem), and Lars Ulrich, the drummer of Metallica, as the Dutch filmmaker Joris Ivens.
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The Associated Press covers the story:
In its suit filed with the European court, Interights reiterates the judge’s argument that these were crimes against humanity and that a case body of international law says such crimes have no statute of limitations and cannot be covered by amnesty, according to a spokeswoman for...
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Yesterday the Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzón brought a case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg challenging the lawfulness of his criminal prosecution in Spain for having opened an investigation into serious crimes committed during the Franco era, following a request by families and representatives of victims of the regime,. The...
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Marjorie Cohn, who gave ALBA's annual Susman lecture last month, calls for the US to stop bombing Libya:
There is no doubt that Muammar Qaddafi has been brutally repressing Libyans in order to maintain his power. But the purpose of the United Nations is to maintain international peace and security. The...
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Irene Filip has just published a detailed essay on Dr. Hans Kaiser and his wife Dora, the two Austrian Jewish volunteers who helped run the International Brigade hospital at Benissa. Read the article, which has appeared in the yearbook of the Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes, here (in German).
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Visiting Chile, President Obama stopped short of offering an apology for the US role in the overthrow of President Salvador Allende in 1973, leading to the bloody military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet--an episode about which then Secretary of State Colin Powell said in 2003 "it is not a part of American history that...
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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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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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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...
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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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