Nearly every year, from the time I was a graduate student studying Spanish literature, I have taught at least one course devoted to the Spanish Civil War and the Franco dictatorship. Once in a while some small story reaches across the pedagogical pavement that separates “history” from “today.” This spring alone brought two such...
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This Sunday's El País Semanal magazine features Lydia Lunch, who is about to launch a book and CD entitled Amnesia, inspired by Belchite, produced together with Jacob Kirkegaard.
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Cynthia Wright reviews Michael Petrou's Renegades: Canadians in the Spanish Civil War (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2008) in the March 2010 issue of the Canadian Historical Review: Petrou "draws on the extensive archive of veteran interviews created by Hoar's researcher, Mac Reynolds, and supplements these with additional interviews of about a dozen surviving...
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Did you know that you can support ALBA by buying books through Powell's, the nation's largest independent bookstore? Check out ALBA's online bookshelf here.
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The Guardian today: "Baltasar Garzón, who has taken aim at Augusto Pinochet and Silvio Berlusconi, among others, now finds himself pursued on three different fronts as a series of writs challenging his impartiality and accusing him of abuse of authority are investigated by the supreme court. his supporters see the attacks...
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José-Luis Peñafuerte (Belgium, Spain: 2009). Screened this week at the International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland. Trailer here:
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Stuart Christie's site is a treasure trove of Spanish Civil War- and Anarchism-related films.
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Are ALBA's institutes for high-school teachers proof of the "corruption of the academy"? Or are some people's reactions and suspicions proof of a particular pathology afflicting students of American Communism and Anti-Communism? An interesting discussion on an historians' listerv.
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Nick Ravich at Art21: "The biggest treat of the evening was the world premiere of the recently rediscovered 20-minute, silent 35mm film With the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (1937-38)."
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Amanda Hopkinson in The Independent: "Essentially, this is the account of one day in the first year of the war, 19th August 1936, when pyres of books were assembled and abused by posses of Falangists on the beaches of Galicia, and its aftermath."
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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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