The Volunteer for Liberty, V2, No. 35, November 7, 1938 The Canadian Mac-Paps, one of the hardest fighting units in the International Brigades have blazed a trail of important military achievements since Oct. 13th, 1937 – the day...
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Spanish documentary makers Clemente Bernad and Carolina Martínez face up to two years in prison and a more than $13,000 fine for having filmed images in the crypt at the Monument for the Fallen in Pamplona, where a mass is celebrated every month in memory of Francoists, El País reports. Memory organizations such as the Association...
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k-Indicates killed or missing in action k –(Canadian) Arvid Carlson (also known as Arthur) was born in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania around 1909. His family was of either Finnish or Swedish background. Carlson likely attended Commonwealth College at some point in the 1930s. He joined the Canadian Communist Party in 1932. Carlson was single and living...
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Members of the New Llano Cooperative Colony in Louisiana formed Commonwealth College in 1923 Commonwealth was envisioned as a Labor College “… a college specifically aimed at the leadership of what they designated as a new social class, the industrial worker. The school moved to site thirteen miles outside of Mena, in Polk County,...
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Company One Mac-Paps By a Member of the 1st Company The Volunteer for Liberty, V. 2, No. 21, June 15, 1938 It was a year ago this month the first company was formed. For a while it was the only company in the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion. The Washington Battalion had left for the front, and...
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The Volunteer for Liberty, V2, No. 3, January 29, 1938 A ghost story of the war has come our way. Readers may interpret it as they please; the comrade who tells it offers no explanation, nor shall we. Here it is. . Comrade C. went into the Brunete offensive...
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More than eighty years after Bob Smillie’s mysterious death in Valencia during the Spanish Civil War, his prison dossier has finally surfaced. Robert Ramsay “Bob” Smillie was a Scottish volunteer who joined the Spanish Civil War in the contingent of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and who died in 1937 under strange circumstances. Although...
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![Sam by A. C. B. [Alvah Cecil Bessie]](https://albavolunteer.org/wp-content/themes/volunteer/thumb.php?src=https://albavolunteer.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Spiller-Sam-150x150.jpg&h=80&w=80&zc=1&q=80)
The Volunteer for Liberty, V.2, No. 31, September 5, 1938. The kid looks and acts about eighteen but when you ask him how old he is he says he’s 23. “”so you’re 23 are you?” said...
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The Volunteer for Liberty, V2, No. 31, September 5, 1938. The Company Commissar was harassed. The boys had been beefing; the grub line was snarled up and sounded like the Chicago stockyards in a thunderstorm. Up walks Comrade S… Said...
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The United States and World Fascism: Human Rights from the Spanish Civil War to Nuremberg and Beyond is the title of ALBA’s professional-development program for high school teachers in Social Studies, Spanish, Art, and Language Arts. Join us this Tuesday, November 6 at NYU’s King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center (53 Washington Square South, New...
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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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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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