Iskra1916 reports on the commemoration of Socialist Spanish Civil War volunteers from Belfast:
the Republican Socialist ex-prisoners group, Teach Na Failte and the Lower Castlereagh Community Development Group, in conjunction with the Consensus Programme, met today for a tour of
"Activist judges like Garzón, Andreu, and Pedraz have created a big diplomatic headache for the Zapatero government." An overview of this past two years' developments at Project Censored: Media Democracy in Action:
In October 2009, under great pressure from the United States, the government of Spain decided to limit its own...
Read more »
A feature in Fabulous magazine on women war journalists, including Martha Gellhorn:
Described by her biographer as a woman who "smoked, drank and travelled with abandon" and used sex to get the best stories, American Martha Gellhorn had an epic career spanning 60 years. She wrote of the human suffering...
Read more »
Marlene Sidaway from the International Brigade Memorial Trust writes with sad news (listen to Sam here):
We are very sorry to have to tell you that our much loved and respected Chairman, SAM LESSER (RUSSELL), has died at the age of 95.
Sam was a founding-member...
Read more »
From our friend Manus O'Riordan: On 29 September 2010, TG4--the Irish language TV station--showed (with English language subtitles) a new documentary on the Irish Socialist Republican leader James Connolly, who was the inspiration for the 15th International Brigade’s Connolly Column. Manus is interviewed briefly in the 10th minute of Part 1. This documentary will remain accessible...
Read more »
With the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Spain, an 18-minute silent film by Henri Cartier-Bresson and Herbert Kline that was recently discovered in the ALBA archives (clip here) and is now on display at the International Center of Photography, will be screened on October 23 at 1:30pm as part of MoMA's...
Read more »
Impunity Watch at Syracuse University reports:
A representative from Spain told the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday that they would not be investigating alleged war crimes committed during the Francisco Franco dictatorship in accordance with an amnesty law passed by the Spanish government in 1977. Mexico had called on...
Read more »
La Colonia: Spanish Immigrants in New York, 1898-1945, the stunning photography exhibit curated by ALBA Board member James D. Fernández and co-sponsored by ALBA, which has been on show for a little over a week now at NYU's King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center, is generating a lot of media buzz in Spain,...
Read more »
On October 14 and 15, ALBA's Prof. Anthony Geist will be at Casa Aboy in San Juan to screen his documentary on the Lincoln Brigade, Souls Without Borders, and to open ALBA's traveling exhibit They Still Draw Pictures: Children's Art in Wartime from the Spanish Civil War to Kosovo. More information
Prize-winning graphic novelist Paco Roca has just released El ángel de la retirada (The Angel of the Retreat), EFE reports, a historical novel based on a script by the novelist Serguei Duonovetz set among second-generation exiles in post-war France. The main character, Victoria Valiente, has to decide whether or not to return to...
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