Julián Casanova in El País on Spain's political corruption and the recent attempts to thwart investigations into Francoist crimes:
Paradoxically, just when our democracy seemed firmly established, after leaving behind the worst aspects of the authoritarian legacy of Francoism, new pressures and threats make us doubt our political model....
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El Sindicalismo socialista español: a book presentation, Madrid, 26 April. ‘El Sindicalismo socialista español. Aproximación oral a la Historia de UGT (1931-1975)’ Dirigido por Alicia Alted, Manuela Aroca y Juan Carlos Collado. En la Escuela Julián Besterio (C/ Azcona, 53 de Madrid) El acto contará con la intervención de: Jesús Pérez (Presidente de la...
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Esther Brown, longtime executive officer of the Bay Area Post of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, died on Friday, April 16. She was the widow of Archie Brown, a Lincoln vet and well-known radical labor activist, who died November 23, 1990. Esther’s parents were Jewish immigrants, escaping the harsh conditions of czarist...
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Yes, it does exist--in fact, a new version has come out.
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The Hitch on Orwell in the Guardian:
There is a Stalin pig and a Trotsky pig, but no Lenin pig. Similarly, in Nineteen Eighty-Four we find only a Big Brother Stalin and an Emmanuel Goldstein Trotsky. Nobody appears to have pointed this out at the time (and if I may say so, nobody...
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Congratulations to Josh Brown, long-time member of ALBA's Board and Executive Committee and illustrator of Robeson in Spain, who has won a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship for his project The Divided Eye: Studies in the Visual Culture of the American Civil War.
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Scott Horton writes:
It may well turn out that Judge Garzón touched the third rail of Spanish politics by opening the door to investigation of the crimes of the Franco past. But his offense in the end can never be termed more than a political miscalculation.
More here. See also...Deirdre Montgomery at the International Criminal Law Bureau writes:
The crux of the case is whether the amnesty law can be limited or superseded by crimes against humanity. It will be interesting to see how much weight international case law (notably the Special Court of Sierra Leone decision to...
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The AP reports:
Spain's most prominent judge, already charged with abuse of power in a potentially career-ending indictment, denied any wrongdoing as he testified Thursday as a suspect in a separate bribery investigation that has compounded his legal woes.
More here. See also the London Times.A television segment from today and a radio clip from a week ago.
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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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