At the University of Colorado this summer: The Autumn Orchard, an opera by J. Michael Martínez and Daniel Kellogg based on the life of the Spanish poet Miguel Hernández (1910-1942), who supported the Spanish Republic and died in a Francoist prison shortly after the end of the Civil War. Miguel Hernández's centenary is...
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Few people have done more than investigative magistrate Baltasar Garzón to connect issues of human rights and historical memory in Latin America with those in Spain. IPS reports that a Peruvian attorney, Ronald Gamarra, has been called as a defense witness to present evidence supporting the claim that amnesty laws do not cover...
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A victory against impunity in Argentina. Almudena Calatrava reports for the AP:
Some of the most notorious figures of Argentina's “dirty war” were convicted Thursday of kidnapping, torturing and murdering 22 people at the beginning of the 1976-1983 military dictatorship when the country cracked down on leftist dissent. Family members of...
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Exclusive to the online Volunteer: A reflection on historical memory a propos of Bloody Sunday (the Saville Enquiry Report was published last month) and the Spanish Civil War, by Trisha Ziff, curator of photography (Hidden Truths: Bloody Sunday) and filmmaker (Chevolution), currently directing the documentary, La Maleta Mexicana/The Mexican Suitcase. Read the...
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The Catalan news program 30 Minuts has made an hour-long documentary on Agustí Centelles, the Spanish Civil War photographer whose archive was recently bought by the Spanish government, and whose portrait of a young black volunteer set off a global detective search. See the documentary here (in Catalan):
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http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/ecuador-first-ratify-new-un-mechanism-enforce-economic-social-and-cultural-rights-2
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After years of hard work,Carmen Negrín, the granddaughter of Spanish Republican Prime Minister Juan Negrín, is gratified, she tells the Spanish newspaper Público, to see her grandfather's voluminous papers turned into a major national archive. Meanwhile, ALBA board member Gabriel Jackson has just published a major biography of Negrín (review forthcoming in...
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La buena nueva (2008), a Spanish Civil War film directed by Helena Taberna and starring Bárbara Goenaga, received the Special Jury Prize for Acting at the Amsterdam Film Festival:
A young priest arrives in his first assignment to a small parish serving a working-class village in the first days of...
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A ceremony was held at the IB Memorial in London two days ago:
This was the first year that there were no veterans of the conflict at the annual celebration, although seven from Britain still survive and were awarded Spanish Passports by the Spanish Government in 2009 as a gesture...
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What exactly is the legal status of the hundreds of thousands of sentences issued by Francoist tribunals during and after the Civil War? To the frustration of many associated with the movement calling for a "recovery of historical memory," Spain's "Historical Memory Law" of 2007 did not include an a massive annulment of...
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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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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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Peter Verbergh translated this article from CeSoir describing the arrest of the Dallet-Nelson Group. “The Interrogation of the Passengers of the Sans-Pareil”, CeSoir, March 29, 1937 (From our Special Correspondent) Perpignan March 28 (By Telephone) Yesterday morning around 10am, The Coast Guard Vessel Cebère docked in the port of Port-Vendres alongside the torpedo boat...
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Only five veterans of the Spanish Civil War are known to be buried in Virginia outside of Arlington National Cemetery: two in Richmond, two in Norfolk, and one in Big Stone Gap. ALB Tribute visited the graves of Harry Edward Farris and Thomas Moore in Richmond as well as Manuel Lizarrago and Crawford Morgan...
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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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