An hour-long BBC radio program broadcast this past Sunday--with several new and many archival interviews, and the participation of Richard Baxell and Paul Preston-- can now be listened to online, here.
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Next week, March 8-10, the Universidad Complutense in Madrid will feature a three-day event (program here in pdf) on the International Brigades, organized by the AABI (Asociación de Amigos de las Brigadas Internacionales) and the Facultad de Bellas Artes, with the goal of exploring the idea of an IB memorial on the university...
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Jorge Videla and Reynaldo Bignone, former military leaders of Argentina, are being accused of overseeing the systematic theft of babies from political prisoners. Their trial has opened, the BBC reports:
More than 100 children are known to have been given for adoption to military or police couples. The long-awaited trial,...
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Benicassim remembers the IB Hospital, Friday, March 4. Guillermo Casañ, who has carried out extensive research on the IB Hospital in Benicassim, will lead a guided tour of IB related sites in the coastal town. Program: II JORNADES MEMÒRIA HISTÒRICA BENICÀSSIM Viernes 4 de marzo, 2011 17:00 Antiguo apeadero del tren de Las Villas...
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Suze Rotolo, 1943 – 2011 The press is reporting the sad news of the death of Suze Rotolo, the American artist, teacher and political activist who was Bob Dylan’s companion and muse in the early 1960s. Rotolo is frequently credited with Dylan’s awakening to politics. According to one obituary she took the “then fairly...
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Marci Rubin, daughter of the late Lincoln veteran Hank Rubin, suggests that donations in Hank's memory be made to ALBA.
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In 1940, Francisco Franco, using the pseudonym Jaime de Andrade, authored a treatment for a screenplay, titled “Raza : Story lines for a film script.” The following year, the script was made into a feature-length film, produced by the government. The original text and the 1941 film are invaluable documents, as they offer us...
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The Spanish government will be financing Judge Garzón's work as part of a working group put together by the Organization of American States (OAS) to assist in Colombia's peace process, ABC reports. In an interview last week on Spanish national radio, Garzón expressed the hope that he would still be able to return...
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The Wall Street Journal's Richard Woodward writes a belated review of the "Mexican Suitcase" SCW photography exhibit:
What assistant curator Cynthia Young and her team have done with this material in less than three years is valiant. Along with reprinting a select group of photographs from the negatives for an...
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Ed Tracey at the DailyKos pens a long post on his Spanish heroes, Baltasar Garzón and King Juan Carlos:
Garzón's trial is scheduled to begin this summer - and this is an individual we should keep in our thoughts and prayers, hoping that our opponents will not be able to...
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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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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.”
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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.
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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.”
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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...
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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.
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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.
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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...
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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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