The 35th Toronto International Film Festival is featuring the North American premiere of Alex de la Iglesia's new Spanish Civil War film, Balada triste de trompeta (The Last Circus; trailer here):
a wild and hilarious film that exposes the nature of political conflicts in his country’s recent history. Set...
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Peter Wong reviews Army of Crime, a new film on the French Resistance during WWII, which is running this coming week at the San Francisco Sundance Kabuki:
A riveting political thriller, Robert Guediguian’s historical drama “Army of Crime” spices the summer filmgoing season with an enthralling ensemble portrait of heroic...
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Bernard Knox, renowned classicist and Spanish Civil War veteran, died this week, age 95. From the New York Times obit:
An American born and raised in Britain, Bernard Knox led a life as richly textured as the classics he interpreted for modern readers. After studying classics at Cambridge, he fought with...
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In an op-ed for today's issue of Público, the writer Félix Población, inspired by a resolution adopted in June by the Friends and Family of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (FFALB), argues it is high time that Madrid names a street after Oliver Law, the Brigade's African American commander, who died in the summer...
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Read British journalist David Eade's article on recent revelations about illicit adoptions of babies by Francoist families:
In wider Spain during the Franco era it has been established that children were indeed taken from their parents without their knowledge and passed on to an adoptive family. It is reported Judge Baltasar...
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An anonymous short story just posted on the Experience Project: He was from London and unemployed in the mid 1930’s and feeling ever more bolshevik by the day – so, he signed up to go to Spain and fight Franco and Hitler – and that Mussolini person. … My grandfather worked in an engineering...
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Ronan Bennett, writing in the Guardian to lament the demise of the UK Film Council, fondly recalls a recent documentary project based on the memoirs of Stuart Christie, the legendary Anarchist bookseller (with the world's best SCW film website), who in 1963 helped conspire to kill the victor of the...
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Gilberto Bosques (1892-1995), the Mexican diplomat who saved thousands of lives of anti-fascist European refugees in the wake of the Spanish Civil War and the outbreak of World War II, has been honored with the opening of his own museum in Puebla, La Jornada reports. Mexican president Lázaro Cárdenas appointed Bosques consul to...
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The Spanish labor party (PSOE) has denounced the removal of plaques commemorating the victims of executions from the walls of the cemetery of Granada, Europa Press reports. The plaques have been removed by the Granada city government, run by the conservative Partido Popular (PP), The plaques had been put up a couple of days earlier, at...
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In an interview with a Spanish gossip magazine, Louis de Bourbon, the pretender to the French throne, defends the legacy of Francisco Franco, who also happens to be his great-grandfather, Expatica reports. More here (in Spanish).
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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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