The Spanish newspaper Público is publishing a series of stories of victims of Francoist repression--stories that, it says, the Spanish courts are refusing to hear. In November 2008, a month after his controversial October 2008 brief indicting the Franco regime for crimes against humanity, judge Baltasar Garzón disqualified himself from the case (se inhibió), passing...
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Picasso was no friend of Franco--or was he? "Although his political sympathies are known to have lain with the hard left, it turns out he was not above breaking bread with Franco's regime.", Vanessa Thorpe reports in today's Guardian on new information discovered by Picasso experts John Richardson and Gijs van Hensbergen:
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Yesterday the French Minister of Culture , Frederic Mitterrand, revealed a statue in honor of the Dutch documentary filmmaker Joris Ivens, whose The Spanish Earth (1937) is one of the best known documentaries of the Spanish Civil War. The sculpture, 36 feet high, is the work of Irish artist Bryan McCormack. The Joris Ivens Foundation reports:
Carl Geiser, a key political leader in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and author of a pioneering book,Prisoners of the Good Fight, died November 28 in Corvallis, Oregon. View images of the memorial service here.
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An interview with Professor Francie Cate-Arries of the College of William and Mary about her recent work with students in Madrid exploring the historical memory of the Spanish Civil War.
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This Wednesday evening, the Filmoteca Española in Madrid screened Henri Cartier-Bresson's recently recovered Spanish Civil War documentary With the Lincoln Brigade, presented by Juan Salas, who discovered the film. Also present was ALBA board member Soledad Fox. See here for a report in Público, here for more on the discovery, here...
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Russia and Spain are making 2011 a year of mutual cultural-historical interest. Among other initiatives, ITAR-TASS reports, there will be a exhibit of masterpieces from the Prado at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, and an show of the Russian collection of Spanish Civil War posters:
the Russians also want to...
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The University of Delaware reports the acquisition of the literary archive of American playwright Barrie Stavis (1906-2007):
Stavis knew at an early age that he would pursue a career as a writer. During the 1930s he struggled with his writing, but in 1937 sailed for Europe to volunteer his...
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The Spanish section of Amnesty International issued an annual report yesterday, at the presentation of which Claudio Cordone, interim director of AI Spain, called the trial against Garzón "scandalous." In the report, Amnesty criticizes the Spanish government for failing "to accept some of the recommendations made by States in the UN Working Group...
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Antonio Muñoz Molina, renowned Spanish novelist and public intellectual, as well as a member of ALBA's Board of Governors, has received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Brandeis University. His recent bestselling historical novel on the Spanish Civil War, La noche de los tiempos, is reviewed by Michael Kerrigan in this week's...
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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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