Tiempo de Historia reports that a digital copy of the personal archive of José Díaz Ramos, secretary general of the Spanish Communist Party from 1932 to 1942, has just been donated to the Centro de Memoria Histórica in Salamanca:
La donación de este fondo para el Centro Documental de la Memoria Histórica...
Read more »
This month marks the one-year anniversary of the online Volunteer and the ALBA blog. Some statistics: Total number of visits: 27,229. Total number of page views: 58,932. Unique visitors: 18,481, from 141 countries. Most read pages, posts and articles: ALBA Blog, Helen Graham, Cartier Bresson, Picasso and Delaprée, Oliver Law, Video,...
Read more »
Montse Armengou and Ricard Belis, the pair of Catalan documentary filmmakers that brought us Les fosses del silenci (The Spanish Holocaust, view part 1- part 2), Els nens perduts del franquisme (The Lost Children of Francoism, part 1 - part 2), and Memòria per llei (Memory by Law, view) returned last month...
Read more »
The blog of the Pabellón de la República, at the University of Barcelona, just announced the catalogization of a stunning collection of 4,500 photographs shot between 1934 and 1938 by legendary photographer Agustí Centelles, collected in a 133-page scrapbook assembled in the late 1970s by the photographer himself, for the purpose of establishing...
Read more »
In an op-ed in yesterday's Monde Diplomatique, Robert Zaretsky adds to the ongoing discussion about the extent to which the lessons of the Spanish Civil War can be applied to the Libyan situation. Wondering "What would Orwell do?" he concludes that "Orwell would make the case for intervention":
The “sang-froid with...
Read more »
ALBA Board Member Soledad Fox recently sent me this lovely dispatch about an excursion she led of US college students to the town of Gernika in the Basque Country. A professor at Williams College, Fox is the author of the outstanding book about Constancia de la Mora, In War and Exile: International Voice for...
Read more »
Did you know ALBA is on Facebook? Join our groups: Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives; ALBA-Puffin Human Rights Activism Award.
Read more »
From El Universal, a 3-minute video clip of Garzón's book presentation three days ago:
Read more »
Tickets for ALBA's annual celebrations in New York and the Bay Area can now be purchased online. The New York program–on May 14th, at the Eisner/Lubin auditorium on Washington Square, New York City (tickets here)–will feature Judge Baltasar Garzón, who will receive the first ALBA-Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism, alongside Michael...
Read more »
The Independent sent a reporter on the annual Jarama walk, in which veterans, family members and sympathizers commemorate the first major battle action the International Brigades saw in Spain. (Meanwhile, efforts continue to locate the graves of the thousands of soldiers who died during the bloody battle.) Stephen Kelly's long piece appears...
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.
Although this text by Ivens is little known—and has never been translated before—it offers an eye-opening reflection on the power of his filmmaking.
Read more »
Antifascism has long been synonymous with American values. In 1934, student activists at New York’s City College arguably understood this better than many do today.
Read more »
After the Nazis occupied the Netherlands, the Seegers family did not hesitate to join the resistance. They had experience fighting fascism: their son Piet had fought for the Spanish Republic. When Tom King started digging into his family history seventy years later, he fell from one surprise into the other.
Read more »
Tina Modotti’s short life took her from Italy to North Beach and from there to Mexico, Berlin, Moscow, and civil-war Spain. Rightly known as a pathbreaking modernist photographer, she was also a radical activist. “Modotti spent the second part of her working life fighting for revolution.”
Read more »
Kirsten Weld has spent years studying Latin American dictatorships and the citizens who fight to hold them accountable. That experience has proven valuable in her current role as president of the AAUP chapter at Harvard, which, in March, sued the federal government for targeting students and faculty—and won.
Read more »
Targeted by the far right, Rutgers historian Mark Bray and his family went into exile in October. Speaking with The Volunteer from Madrid, he reflects on the current political situation. “Fascism shamelessly takes over institutions that, under liberal norms, are supposed to remain neutral.”
Read more »
I. In the Beginning Second child, Bernard, born March 1, 1915 Older brother, my father, Jacob (Jack), born June 3, 1912 Younger sister, Roslyn, born (June 1, 1922) disabled, hospitalized, died February 10, 1942 Their father, Abraham, died March 21,1930 Their mother, Nettie, died April 29, 1953 Bernie Brilliant student, graduated High...
Read more »
The title of this new occasional feature of The Volunteer is the Esperanto word for “archive.” In it, we will present, translate, and contextualize iconic non-English language documents related to the anti-fascist struggle in Spain.
Read more »
In recent years, citizen groups in Leipzig and Madrid have fought to preserve the buildings that were backdrops in two of Robert Capa’s best-known photographs. Their steadfast dedication has created two sites of historical memory whose significance extends far beyond Capa’s original images.
Read more »
On November 8, 1937, Salaria Kea, a 26-year-old African American nurse from Ohio, had been in Spain for seven months and one day. The country was in disarray. Half its territory was controlled by fascist rebels. Cities were being bombed, and civilians were killed by the thousands. Thousands more were forcibly displaced. But Kea...
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