As reported earlier, the Spain's 2007 Law of Historical Memory did not annul Francoist sentences, although it did, ambiguously, declare the tribunals that issued them to be “illegitimate.” As a result, it is now up to individual victim's families to request actual legal annulments. After Andulucía's request for an annulment in the...
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José Ignacio Torreblanca, writing for the Financial Times, assesses Spain's victory at the FIFA World Cup in light of the state of the country:
Rarely can sporting triumph have come as such a welcome distraction as World Cup victory has...
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An hour-long radio debate on the impunity of Francoist repression and the possibilities of seeking of legal recourse, broadcast last month by Contratiempo. Featuring Emilio Silva, founding president of the Association for the Recuperation of Historical Memory, as well as three magistrates: Ramón Saéz Valcarcel, Ignacio Ubaldo González de la Vega, and José Miguel García...
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Human Rights Watch has issued a report proposing "a framework for improving US immigration law that would give immigrant crime victims a chance to seek justice, protect workers, respect the private and family life of longtime residents, and provide fair treatment for immigrants who come before the courts." More here.
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Los Canadienses: Canadians in the Spanish Civil War, Albert Kish's hour-long documentary from 1975 on Canadian volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, is now viewable in six parts on YouTube.
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A photography project by Alex Burgaz at United Photo Press.
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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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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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The war in Spain was barely over, but the scramble to define the legacy of the International Brigades was on. Were they valiant antifascists, or had they been agents, victims, or dupes of world communism? In pre-1945 US popular culture, the brigadistas were often portrayed as heroic antifascists. At the same time, there were...
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China was entangled in multiple local and global crises when this image was published on the back cover of a Shanghai-based magazine.
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The Republic’s fight against fascism was not limited to the trenches. There was also a quieter, though no less vital front—the judiciary—where the Republic fought to preserve legality, due process, and democratic norms.
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Major US films and series about the Spanish Civil War have been few and far between. Why has Hollywood shied away from a topic that, on the face of it, presents such a trove of compelling stories?
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Close to 35 years after serving as a head nurse in the Spanish Civil War, Fredericka Martin, by then an accomplished author, returned to Spain to revisit the hospital sites where she had her fellow volunteers had saved hundreds of lives. Another half century later, Gina Benavidez, a doctoral candidate, followed Martin’s trail.
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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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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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