Last night a young Spanish poet, Isabel Cadenas, showed me her blog: nuncafuiagranada.blogspot.com. When I asked her why she chose that line from Rafael Alberti's homage to Federico García Lorca, victim of a fascist firing squad in the first month of the civil war, she replied "Because I've never been to Granada." Alberti...
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In my family's photo albums is this shot of General Miaja (seated with round spectacles) --leader of the defense of Madrid-- in the living room of the Brooklyn home of my grandparents at some point during the Spanish Civil War.
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To the surprise of many, El País reports, the programming for the Berlin Film Festival this February includes a feature-length documentary about Baltasar Garzón by the Catalan director Isabel Coixet (The Secret Life of Words, My Life Without Me), based on a long interview that the novelist Manuel Rivas held with...
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A propos of Susie Linfield's new book on Robert Capa, James Nachtwey, and others, Jed Perl reflects in The New Republic on the importance of "great photojournalism":
Photojournalists are yesterday’s heroes. ... Few photographers are any longer seen as providing definitive information about some national or international trouble spot, at...
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Another clip from Facing Fascism:
"No pasarán"--"They shall not pass"--was the antifascist rallying call throughout the war. The phrase referred to the defense of Madrid from the Fascist onslaught. A Spanish cigar maker living in Tampa, Florida, composed a song with those words as the refrain; it was recorded on a...
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Earlier this week, the Diario de Teruel covered the trip of a group of family members of Abraham Lincoln Brigade took this past fall to visit some of the Brigade's "sites of memory":
Viento glacial, aire siberiano y frío ártico son algunos de los adjetivos con los que el escritor y...
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Juan María Gómez Ortiz sends this image of Maynard Goldstein at the Jarama front, in the spring of 1937, which illustrates the cover of the Spanish edition of Harry Fisher's book Comrades. He writes:
The photo was taken by Sam Walters. Harry Fisher was very close to Maynard all along his life and...
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Jay Greenfield was 5 years old when his brother Hy enlisted in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade; James D. Fernández interviewed him for the Facing Fascism exhibit. Read Hy's letters home here. Video here.
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An interview with Abe Osheroff. Video here.
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From the January 15th issue of the Times:
GOLDSTEIN--Maynard, 2 December 1913-12 January 2011. On October 16, 2010, Maynard Goldstein--the last surviving veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade who fought at Jarama--spoke at a benefit event for the Archives of the Vets. He spoke passionately, bringing to life the streets of New York in...
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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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New information about the New Zealand-born Spanish Civil War surgeon Doug Jolly (1904-1983) has emerged following the recent publication of his biography, Frontline Surgeon.
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On September 24, 1945, Dr. Barsky delivered this speech during the Spanish Refugee Appeal rally at Madison Square Garden.
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In 1944, Barsky wrote A Surgeon Goes to War, an 18-chapter memoir of his time in Spain, which was never published but can be consulted at NYU’s Tamiment Library. This is the first chapter.
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Self-effacing and shy though he was, Dr. Edward Barsky’s experience in Spain made him an outspoken activist, tireless organizer, innovative frontline surgeon, and political prisoner. “Eddie is a saint,” Hemingway wrote. “That’s where we put our saints in this country—in jail.”
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The Volunteer is thrilled to honor Dr. Barsky on the fiftieth anniversary of his death.
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For Edward Barsky, political and humanitarian activism were two sides of the same coin. Those who persecuted him begged to differ.
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The time she spent in civil-war Spain loomed large in the life of Martha Gellhorn, the St. Louis-born war journalist. “The truth is that Martha could not stop thinking, feeling, and writing about her Spanish experiences.” “Objectivity bullshit.” That’s what Martha Gellhorn (1908-1998) called the journalism of her day. Her letters to personalities like...
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Among the thousands of Jewish volunteers who joined the International Brigades were many descendants of the Sephardim. What was it like for them to “return” to Spain? Three case studies: Lini de Vries, César Covo, and Samuel Nahman, aka Manny Harriman.
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How the 22-year-old Jewish American dancer Janet Riesenfeld performed flamenco to help raise money for the Second Republic under fascist attack.
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Why did Jawaharlal Nehru, future prime minister of India, visit civil-war Spain in 1938? As it turned out, the triangular relationship between Britain, Spain, and India had deep cultural and geopolitical implications.
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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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