Why did George W. Bush not go to Switzerland last week? Xavier Rauscher at International Jurist has the answer: He did not want to end up like Augusto Pinochet. As Geoff Pingree and I wrote in The Nation last May, the pioneering efforts of the Spanish judge "have ensured, for example, that Donald Rumsfeld...
Read more »
Opening statement from the US Department of State, from the publication “The Spanish Government and the Axis,” a collection of the wartime correspondence between Franco, Hitler and Mussolini which was discovered in Germany in 1945: THE GOVERNMENTS of France, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America have exchanged views with regard to...
Read more »
BlackPast.org is featuring vignettes of African American volunteers in Spain.
Read more »
La voz dormida, the best-selling novel by the late Dulce Chacón about women prisoners in post-Civil War Spain, is being made into a feature film by Benito Zambrano (Solas, Habana Blues), Variety reports; shooting starts this week, featuring Inma Cuesta and María León.
Budgeted at €4 million ($5.5 million),...
Read more »
In today's New York Times Book Review, Tara McKelvey reviews The Second Son, Jonathan Rabb’s final volume in a trilogy of historical thrillers, set during the Spanish Civil War:
Fascism and anarchy in 1930s Spain combine with romantic entanglement to provide the action ... The Second Son is an unusual blend...
Read more »
The Telegraph reports on one of the revelations in the new documentary about Baltasar Garzón, which is premiering at the Berlinale:
A British based neo-Nazi group allegedly plotted to assassinate one of Spain's leading judges over his attempt to investigate the crimes of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. Members of...
Read more »
Manchester Confidential highlights the Working Class Movement Library:
There’s lots about the volunteers who went out from Manchester in the 1930s to fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War – letters home, and the diary of Ralph Cantor from Cheetham Hill who died in Spain aged 21.
More here.
Herbert Sigüenza's one-man show A Weekend with Pablo Picasso opens in Houston this week, Chron reports:
The format is more Picasso just being Picasso - though he does look back at key incidents and works. He tells certain stories, as anyone would in conversation. He tells about his painting Guernica, how it...
Read more »
I recently stumbled across a WikiLeaks-like March 1945 letter by FDR to the new US Ambassador in Madrid, saying that the US government will hold its nose and maintain relations with the Franco regime, but that it repudiates the origins and ideology of the regime. Little did I know that this brief archival document...
Read more »
Matti Mattson's daughter Ilona and grandson Mischa inform us that a memorial celebration for Matti Mattson will be held on Friday, March 18, 2011, 5:00pm, King Juan Carlos I Center, NYU (55 Washington Square South, New York). No flowers please; contributions in Matti's memory can be sent to ALBA or Veterans for Peace.
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