Historian and novelist C.J. Sansom, author of the best-selling Winter in Madrid, reflects on the relationship between Adolf Hitler and Francisco Franco:
The issue of the relationship between Spain’s General Franco and Hitler has been a controversial one for many years. The “conservative” view is that Franco’s dealings with the...
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At the University of Colorado this summer: The Autumn Orchard, an opera by J. Michael Martínez and Daniel Kellogg based on the life of the Spanish poet Miguel Hernández (1910-1942), who supported the Spanish Republic and died in a Francoist prison shortly after the end of the Civil War. Miguel Hernández's centenary is...
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Few people have done more than investigative magistrate Baltasar Garzón to connect issues of human rights and historical memory in Latin America with those in Spain. IPS reports that a Peruvian attorney, Ronald Gamarra, has been called as a defense witness to present evidence supporting the claim that amnesty laws do not cover...
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A victory against impunity in Argentina. Almudena Calatrava reports for the AP:
Some of the most notorious figures of Argentina's “dirty war” were convicted Thursday of kidnapping, torturing and murdering 22 people at the beginning of the 1976-1983 military dictatorship when the country cracked down on leftist dissent. Family members of...
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Exclusive to the online Volunteer: A reflection on historical memory a propos of Bloody Sunday (the Saville Enquiry Report was published last month) and the Spanish Civil War, by Trisha Ziff, curator of photography (Hidden Truths: Bloody Sunday) and filmmaker (Chevolution), currently directing the documentary, La Maleta Mexicana/The Mexican Suitcase. Read the...
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The Catalan news program 30 Minuts has made an hour-long documentary on Agustí Centelles, the Spanish Civil War photographer whose archive was recently bought by the Spanish government, and whose portrait of a young black volunteer set off a global detective search. See the documentary here (in Catalan):
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http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/ecuador-first-ratify-new-un-mechanism-enforce-economic-social-and-cultural-rights-2
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After years of hard work,Carmen Negrín, the granddaughter of Spanish Republican Prime Minister Juan Negrín, is gratified, she tells the Spanish newspaper Público, to see her grandfather's voluminous papers turned into a major national archive. Meanwhile, ALBA board member Gabriel Jackson has just published a major biography of Negrín (review forthcoming in...
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La buena nueva (2008), a Spanish Civil War film directed by Helena Taberna and starring Bárbara Goenaga, received the Special Jury Prize for Acting at the Amsterdam Film Festival:
A young priest arrives in his first assignment to a small parish serving a working-class village in the first days of...
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A ceremony was held at the IB Memorial in London two days ago:
This was the first year that there were no veterans of the conflict at the annual celebration, although seven from Britain still survive and were awarded Spanish Passports by the Spanish Government in 2009 as a gesture...
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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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